Projects take time

The most-beautiful-three-and-a-half-year-old on the planet decided to help me do a little crocheting when she and her parents were visiting.  One of her favorite cartoon characters, the brilliant Richard Scarry’s Lowly Worm, was in the process of being recreated in yarn.  Not a terribly difficult project for a 58-year-old grandmother who learned to crochet decades ago (from my grandmother, BTW, only I was a bit older.)

As we worked together, she observed:

“I’m helping you crochet Lowly Worm.  We are so, so, so, so, so busy….”

And we were…

Perhaps a trail should be part of the plan:

Even Buckley was included in the activity—

She seemed to enjoy this form of crocheting.  (Days after they left, I found one of my hooked needles deeply embedded in a skein of yarn when, for some reason, the inside thread was stuck…)

And I LOVED it.  Sure, it was not efficient, made a mess, and who cares?  But, as my Father has a way of teaching us “from the mouths of babes”…

…I was acutely aware that this is exactly what I tend to do with Him!  While God is systematically working on a project in my behalf, something I want, something that will make me happy, I feel I have to “help” Him.  And I can get so, so, so, so, so busy at “helping” Him, that I make a tangled mess.

In doing so, “my” finished project is a bit off the intended template:

This is to be expected in a younger Christian, but as I mature, it would behoove me to sit next to the Master and learn how to properly use the tools, hold the yarn, change the colors—as I did with my grandmother so many years ago.

As I hope to do in a few years when I have the most-beautiful-seven-year-old on the planet comes to visit.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Philippians 1:6 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.