Saturday, June 15, 2013

Knitting Things Together

I've been thinking a lot about knitting this week. A friend of our's came to arts camp on Wednesday (yes, we are in camp season again!) and taught the kids how to finger knit. The sweet girl was having a very stressed day, and according to her dad, her (unrelated) stress was at its height during that session, so I half-way expected her to have not even taken it all in. As it turns out, she loved finger knitting. She has been enjoying it all week long; in fact, she knitted up a whole soft skein of yarn and turned it into a scarf and now wants to do more.

The timing here feels like such a God-thing. We are still navigating the repercussions (good but challenging) of her OCD diagnosis. Just that morning, the doctor had suggested we put together a worry bag that S can keep with her and turn to when she feels like she is getting stuck in her thoughts. We brainstormed a list of materials that could go into the bag. The doc (whom we really like) was suggesting a sort of tactile craft, beyond drawing. She asked the sweet girl if she liked to do anything like make friendship bracelets and S said no. We had been trying to think of something that would be enjoyable and easy to carry around in the bag. And it was that afternoon that she learned how to finger-knit. It's been wonderful seeing her take off with it. It's also been wonderful to see her come to new realizations that she has creative options when she gets mentally and emotionally stuck. Learning to put some of those into practice and make them habits is going to take time, but at least we're taking small steps in the right direction.

The lovely timing of the learning of the new skill, just when she most needed it, reminded me again how wonderfully God knits together the details of our lives. Even the hard places, which can sometimes seem knotted and tangled from our perspective, don't throw him off from finishing the beautiful weaving and knitting he's doing. I'm so grateful to know that every moment of every day, and all parts of our journey, are in his loving hands.




2 comments:

Free Range Anglican said...

I bet she'd be awesome at crochet, too!

M took to the finger knitting thing, too and wants me to dig up some yarn for him. Around here somewhere, no doubt.

Beware, though, lest S. develop what my knitting friends refer to as "a barn full of yarn." :) Lovely fuzzy yarn!

Beth said...

Funny you should mention that -- we've been talking about tackling crochet. I used to do it a little bit years ago and have been wanting to re-learn myself!

I suspect we will end up with lots of yarn in our lives. Not necessarily a bad thing! ;-)