I just went on a vacation to the beach with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving and 15 years of marriage to my wonderful husband. It was a quiet time of rest and renewal, except for the knots...
I love making things with my hands. I taught myself to crochet a couple of years ago, and now I enjoy crocheting prayer shawls to give as gifts. I happened to be working on one when it came time for our trip, so I took it with me, as I usually will take some kind of handiwork to do while relaxing.
Well, I was happily crocheting along one evening when our time on the beach was done, when I ran into a rather large knot that was up inside the skein that I was using and had gone about 1/3 into. The more I pulled and tried to untie the knots, the more they multiplied and the more frustrating they became. I untied and untied, and untangled and untangled, and when one area was straightened and usable, another area seemed to multiply with knots and tangles in it. Frustrated, I showed my husband the mess, for lack of a better word, and was encouraged to cut it, throw it away and start on a brand new skein..."no way that is going to come out..."
Well, I thought about it, and the more I did, the more I felt I needed to work it out, I didn't know why, but I had the sense that this knot needed me, and I needed it. I thought, "why in the world can't I just throw this away and start over...I'm wasting valuable time from my vacation...I don't think anything is going to help this unbelievable heap of yarn that has worked itself into a complete tizzy!"
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't give up on it. I simply couldn't throw it away. I felt compelled to work my way through this now series of knots and balls of complicated tangles! The thought of cutting it made me cringe! So, I decided to work out the knots one by one, and that if it took the rest of our vacation and until the year 2014, I would work out this complete maze of beautiful, shiny, soft yarn that I now felt some weird connection to...
My sweet husband never said a word, he pretended not to notice when hour after hour I spent working through one knot after another and in the work I found my reason for doing it. I was astounded when the insights started to occur to me, and I realized there was a real and undeniable reason that I had not let this particular mess go.
One knot after another I realized that this ball and heap of messy, tangled up, practically nonredeemable string represented my life and the struggles in it. I realized that life is full of jams and creases that must be worked through and straightened out in order for us to be at peace. I realized that the it took a tremendous amount of time and energy to work through those tangles and that often in pulling out a new knot, I had to go back over ground I had already covered. I had to backtrack some of the time, I had to pull the same piece of string over and over again until it would finally break free from the pieces that held it bound to itself.
If I could have stretched the yarn straight out in one, long line, it would have represented my life from birth to death, so I realized there were areas that were masted up and bound, and there were areas that were without hindrance and in essence, free. I could clearly see that each part, whether it was free or bound, had some effect on the rest of the string and how it was able to function properly or not. I realized that my life was affected now and always by the good times and the bad times, the times of struggle and the times of freedom. I realized that each time was equally necessary, important and valuable.
You know, eventually I did work out that mass of collective upheaval and felt an incredible sense of relief and accomplishment in having done so. I used every inch of this special yarn, it, in all of its worn glory, to continue on in making the prayer shawl, and I can't wait to see who ends up receiving it. I am thankful for it and the lessons it taught me, and for the hope that it gave me. I know that no words can accurately describe the mess that I started out with, you would have had to have been there to really fully understand it, and so is the case with my life, and yours as well.
We face turmoil and upsets and times of conflict and angst, but there is always hope. We can always find some way to work through it, if we truly try and fully commit to it. And it is in the times of peace and equally in the times of stressful events of one kind or another, that we live our beautiful and purposeful and valuable lives.
