Knit in My Mother's Womb, Woven into the Church

Finally! After 30 +years of making resolutions to learn how to knit, finally, the opportunity came to check it off my bucket list.   A friend who’s been knitting as long as I’ve been postponing, offered to teach a bunch of us moms how to make a small dishrag. But since the only yarn hanging around my crafts shelf was Cotswold sheep’s wool in its almost raw state and I didn’t want hairy dishes, I ambitiously aimed for a scarf as my first project.

My fingers and I couldn’t stop smiling.  We were at last going to join the ranks of jolly real ladies with their lady-like skills. Oh hark! There we were, feeling quite the bee’s knees, daydreaming of lovely projects for our favorite models:

Happy

Alas, I didn’t figure that I had to measure the yarn first before embarking on a scarf, and the complication that the source of the one-of-a-kind yarn was a hidden Amish community in another state.  Not surprisingly, my scarf turned up a smidgen short and a tad itchier than I imagined. Blimey!

(Let that be a word of warning for those of you who think you can escape math by going to law school. Someday, your lack of mathematical skills comes to bite you where the sun doesn’t shine.) 

O pray, dearest knitting ladies, do tell me what to do?

“I have just the perfect place for your special … um…”  said my daughter.

“Swatch,”  I supplied.

And lo and behold, my intense labor of love is now a texture of rug on a doll house.

Funny

Whellll. I certainly won’t be making a living out at Etsy but I admit, my piece looks better over at Barbie’s than as a stiff, itchy collar around my neck.  (Wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a dog with fleas, anyway.)

So wow.  I mean, gracious me! There’s so much reflection I could spin on this experience.  For one thing, I am ever grateful that when God knit me in my mother’s womb, He carefully planned out every single detail of my being.  He didn’t just grab the only available string of hair.  He counted them all one by one, (albeit stringently) for my Baptism.  And when He knew I would tear them out in frustration over the algebra lessons in college and lose them over the stress of building a house,  He made sure I had the daily Eucharist available so that I could weave in and out of the tapestry of my life with much needed graces.   During the times when I tugged and looped against His pattern, the Confessional was there, ready to absolve.  When I met my “soul needle”, Jesus celebrated the Sacrament of Matrimony, supplying us with more graces so we could cooperate with the grand design of the Church.  When I got sick and felt like a worn out rug out at the hospital, the Sacrament of the Sick gave me peace and healing.

Pretty

At the end of last week, we attended the funeral Mass of a 90 year old nun and it was there that I contemplated just how much treasure there is in our Holy Mother Church. Even in our death, She gives us grace.

We Catholics are blessed to know we’ve been created in love before we were placed in the womb and also, the given grace to be born anew into the folds of our Holy Mother Church. So on those days when I feel like I’m coming up short against all the other super-knitting ladies out there, I can relax.  The Divine Artist crafted me with unbelievable care and The Good Shepherd isn’t done with me yet.  

Real Love. (I found this artwork by an artist named Nevada Rose)

+AMDG

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