Restorative Grace

Nº 392

Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown. - Corrie Ten Boom

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a friend who tried to knit a pair of gloves using a flawed pattern. The wrong directions led to a messy, snarled, and unproductive result.

She followed up with this encouraging update. Instead of tossing the entire mess into the trash she decided on a better, more productive idea. She unraveled the tangled yard, rewound it into a neat round ball, secured an accurate pattern, and went back to work. The result was a beautiful new pair of gloves.

This side of eternity, our mistakes are never final. The flawed patterns that we may follow can make our lives a mess; leaving us frustrated, isolated, and ashamed. But we can never create a mess so great that God cannot unravel the tangles and make something new. The result may have scars woven into the new design, but even those can be beautiful and productive.

Near the end of the Bible we read, He who was seated in the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) We cannot follow a flawed pattern too far or tangle this life’s ball of yarn so tightly that God cannot intervene and make all things new.

Excelsior,

Dan Bolin

Author & President