Create

I love to make stuff. This passion is juxtaposed with a lack of prowess in the hand-eye coordination department and a general lack of innate crafting talent, unless you count the arrangement of elements on an old-fashioned scrapbook page. I can follow simple directions, and generally stay with projects that a child could do. I enjoy cross stitching because making X's with thread is relatively straightforward. I was looking at diamond art pictures with joy in my heart recently. Why not just buy a picture? Well, there is something supremely satisfying to me about having made something. It's tough for me to explain. Even if the craft employs no skill, like the many, many latch hook rugs I have made, I get a huge bang out of having made the picture myself. It would not be in the world were it not for my effort.

I included a picture of my embroidery scissors (see above). I  had used them for cross stitch, but dulled them cutting needlepoint yarn recently. I wanted to learn that needlecraft, and, after watching a youtube video, set about making my first couple of stitches on a small piece. I discovered that I should have stretched the needlepoint canvas and abandoned my effort because I didn't have the right tools for doing that. The scissors were a casualty. I have found, however, that I can still use them for the easy cross stitch kit I am currently working on; a 10 count (holes can be seen from outer space, a three-year-old could do it) picture of a mother and baby panda using thicker wool thread. The scissors symbolize my drive to learn something new in the New Year. I'll get at least two needlepoint pictures done. They made my 2018 goal list, and neither flood, famine, earthquake or pestilence will keep me from them.

I asked my husband recently why I seem to really want to do something that I am terrible at (needlework). I told him that my box of cross stitch kits yet to be done depressed me. "I am horribly slow! I have all of those beautiful projects in that box...I'll never get them done," I lamented. "Are you on a timeline," he asked. No, no I am not. I simply want to spin the gorgeous pictures out one directly after the other and, in the process, I'm not really much enjoying the journey. Remember the fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare? I am the tortoise, only the finish line yields only a handful of small completed projects every year. Sigh. My husband seemed to think the key lies in not buying any more kits. At all. Ok. I guess I can TRY to do that (I bought one this morning).

There is no profoundly inspirational punchline today. I'm just reflecting on my motives and shining a flashlight on an area of my life that gets a lot of my time. I'm tweaking it aloud, as it were. I've always admired people who attempted things beyond their skill level, but I don't give myself that same grace. For whatever reason, writing has always come fairly easy to me, so I'll make that the pursuit that gobbles up the majority of my time. But I cannot, I will not, give up crafting! Perhaps the key lies, as with most elements of life, in the elusive concept of balance. Stop buying and hoarding. Start doing. Stay with projects to the finish line. Do the crafts you enjoy. This is not your job, this is a way to unplug from the stresses of life! If no one latch hooks anymore, SO WHAT! So. What. You do, Laurie! (Pardon the pep talk with myself.) Accept your limitations. They are as much a part of your individuality as your talents are, and help in lighting the correct path for your days!

All of you ladies who excel at needlework: do not take your gifts for granted. They are truly gifts! All of you who love childish crafts (like me), exult! Rejoice! Make your Quilt-Magic creations and enjoy your adult coloring books! You'll spend less on shrinks and counselors! You'll invest more of your time in the specific work you were individually called by God to do. It's all good. It's all good.

Purpose

There are people (who I greatly admire) who seem to get maximum bang for their buck out of their time on earth. They are getting it done and in very grand style. Some are sold out for Christ, doing ministry work with genuine fervor, excelling in productivity and for absolutely all of the right reasons. Others are maximizing their career potential and, in so doing, fulfilling their God-given destinies as equally as those in full-time ministry. Their talents are not falling by the wayside. Nothing is wasted.

Then there are wanderers and meanderers like me. I am the proverbial donkey that left the ranch. I did not mean to, I NEVER mean to, but, inevitably the Holy Spirit has to increase pressure on my heart until I scream for depth and meaning and wheel my cart back for the ranch of purpose. Oh, I enjoy my diet of wild dandelions and races with tumbleweeds for a time. But I always circle back. He knows how to corral me. Sometimes it is my own empty spot that sends me packing for the water trough of God. I need Him. I cannot experience Him outside of my destiny. I feel I have missed large, voluminous aspects of that perfect plan. However, I have so much hope. Call me crazy, but I don't think our work ends when we die. I think we will have purpose and industry in heaven. It is and will continue to be a blessing. It's fun to be an individual. I don't believe that will ever die. God made each of us unique, and He enjoys our uniqueness!

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I think God, while certainly setting us on paths of purpose that should be kept with diligence (read the book of Proverbs), actually gets a large kick out of us just, well, being us. This means that when we have fun doing things that we enjoy, He enjoys the scene. Just a thought. The next time you realize that you have either a) chosen a job that uses NONE of your strengths and kills your creativity or b) have made work an idol and do not express yourself as a human being through hobbies or recreational activities, try to remember the joy you had when your children were small and you watched them enjoy themselves. God feels that, too! If it's either too late or wholly impractical (watch this, because the Holy Spirit's direction can sometimes feel impractical to our finite human understanding) to get a new job or embark on a new, more fulfilling career, there are many, many other ways to fill your cup of fulfillment and purpose. Ask God to reveal them to you, and be prepared for him to answer you. He will!

Reflection

It's not the big moments in life that define us. Nope. Not the moment we say "I do," the second our first child is born. It's the millions of experiences that splice in and out of every day that shape and mold us into the people we are. Not only are each person's experiences radically different in sequence and scope, but every individual's lens of perception is unique.  DNA assures us of this. Something else moves our lens about, wobbles the shape. That something is the very thing we are viewing through it...the experiences themselves. Every human being is on a unique trajectory. Some of what happens to us is our own doing, some is the result of living in a very fallen world. And the glorious best is what happens because we are, for the few seconds that we are, in perfect sync with our Creator and His best plan for our lives.

I might be getting stronger. Might be. (Disclaimer: any strength I currently have is the result of God living in and breathing through me. My ability to stand is rooted in His strength, and the fact that He refuses to let me fall.) A better way to say this is that I am learning to lean on God more consistently.

I will strive to let what I have experienced help me to help others. I have been smashed...utterly crushed to powder by circumstances and my own silly way of dealing with them, then pieced back together by a loving heavenly Father who remains immeasurably patient with me as I navigate the channels and backwaters of a life I never planned to live. Not at the beginning, at least. Not as a hopeful, young college student. I am beginning to see that, in the brackish sludge of a slough my little canoe was forced down, there is a reflection on the water. That reflection is hope. That reflection is peace. That reflection is joy. It tells of many things to come.Good things. It whispers of a life that will be all the richer for the fight. All the better for the struggle. All the deeper for the pursuit of God in the midst of the storm.