I love handmade items. 🤗 As a young girl, I remember my Grandmother Osmond started it off by teaching me to make my first crocheted blanket. She showed me the beauty and creativity that creating these types of items can bring. ♥️ Since then, I've crafted dolls, quilts, tatting, scrapbooks, paintings, drawings, sewing, tatting and pretty much everything down to needlepointing Christmas stockings for all my children and their spouses. 🥰 I felt though, at times, my mother kept encouraging me to do these projects so I’d stay busy and out of trouble with my downtime. 😂 I now understand the wisdom in doing if it to build self worth and share their “love language” through gifts of creativity. ♥️ However, with all the crafts I’ve done, the one thing I never really perfected... is intricate knitting... it requires sticks!!! 🤭 If I make a mistake, it’s difficult for me to know how to fix the big hole I made. OK I’ll own it… I had to start over... 7 times! 😩 After the sixth mishap, I threw that yarn away because it looked like it had been through a paper shredder. 🥳 I got off track when I didn’t count the rows properly. Let’s just say I needed serious help... DESPERATELY!!! I don’t live by my favorite yarn store anymore (La Knitterie Parisienne in Studio City, CA owned by my friend Edith), so I did some research and found a knitting shop near me now. Let’s just say the owner, Barbie and I are now “new besties.” She was my literal Savior, so to say. Barbie showed me how to fix my mistakes and I learned a cool trick! Write each row of the pattern on spiral index cards and when you completed the row you’re on, flip the card to go to the next rows instruction. This really helped me stay on track and not get lost. After that, if I had a problem, I would just call Barbie with an SOS and she would help me pull the yarn off the needles to correct the mistake. Teaching me this skill has made it so I haven’t had to start over again!!! 😂👍
As I was driving away from Barbie’s shop, I felt so hopeful about my project and realized how metaphorical my experience was. The blanket I’m crocheting is just like our lives. Sometimes it can be difficult, complicated confusing, discouraging, overwhelming... and even at times a real mess! Throughout our lives, we’ll all continue to make mistakes and have to start over, just like my knitting project. But when I finally made the effort to ask Barbie for help, not only did she guide me through the process, but she explained the pattern, in detail, making it much easier to navigate and succeed. She helped me become more knowledgeable, independent, and made a whole process easier. This is how the Savior teaches us throughout scripture.
The counsel we’ve been given, to reference and utilize His holy word in our lives each day, gives me new peace. Using a pattern, whether for knitters or life in general, helps us to make less mistakes. The more I thought about it, the more I could see how similar my knitting project was to the Atonement. I didn’t want to give up, but I was tempted! I know the Savior asked our Father to let the cup pass from Him, but he added, not my will, but thine be done. He chose to LIVE those last horrific hours of His earthly life, instead of giving up. He did die for you and me, but He also chose to live for you and me ♥️ —until His work was finished. In those final hours, He experienced the culmination of all mortal heartache, pain and suffering, descending below ALL things, even unto death, so He could guide us through our lives. His ultimate sacrifice affords us the opportunity to “fix our mistakes” and live with Him and our Father in Heaven, again, someday. I know there is nothing that can’t be fixed if we look to the Savior and ask for His help and guidance.
I’ve had some struggles in life that at the time I felt gave me reason to give up, but I chose to press forward and keep living. And just like I want to learn intricate knitting, I want to learn everything the Lord has for me to experience on earth. He has given us the pattern for life… and one day when we put our knitting needles down for good, and the blanket is finished, we will realize the miracle in our lives is that we never worked on it alone.
#SundayMessage
