“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
-Joshua 1:5

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10

Through the last 25 years of needlework, I have learned that making millions of stitches not only works a muscle memory, but also a meditative, emotional, and spiritual memory. I can pick up pieces I made 10 years ago and have specific memories of emotion. Not just what was happened, but what my life felt like during that time. What things made me happy, what I was worried about. In a way that a photograph or even a journal entry can’t encapsulate, because you can feel it in your fingers, the way the yarn slides through them stitch after stitch. You think about babies laughing and sleeping and teething, friends getting sick, bills getting paid, graduations, promotions, fights, wins, gains, losses, everything in your daily life and nothing at all. In the end you have this thing that is an accumulation of all those stitches and all those thoughts bound up together.

Most people who do not craft place value on handmade items because of the time it takes, but for those who make them, that isn’t what makes them valuable. We love that time, for us the time itself is the gift. The real value is within those thoughts woven into those stitches. Because who can put a price tag on a hat when I can put it on my head, take a deep breath, and feel aching nostalgia for the anxiety, exhaustion, and helpless love I felt for my now 9 year old twins while they were teething. I remember the silky bumps of cool organic cotton soothing my hands as I would nurse them and draw in those rare, hard fought moments of redemptive, blissful relief the three of us shared with each stitch. I even have half-finished pieces from high school I can’t seem to help but pick up and think about tests I forgot to study for, or the friends I was struggling with. “I made this that summer we went to Oregon and got stuck on my birthday. I had that boyfriend I thought I might be in love with but never spoke to again.” What was his name? I have no idea. But I made half a purse, so I remember every other detail of that half-relationship.

As I thought about my upcoming baptism, something I never really considered as being an event in my life before, I realized it was important to me to have something handmade be included. Because I live with bipolar disorder, my constant prayer with God is to maintain balance within myself and the world. For me, unfortunately I know it is reality that it is not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ my life will feel deep and dark, when I will feel abandoned by love and grace. With this shawl, I can wrap myself in the promise He gives me on this day and the holy blessings I receive from our pastor and the congregation. While I knit I meditate on what I have learned of faith in the last year. I pray for God to guide me in perspective, let go of bad habits, to break free of fear of discontent. Most of all I pray for the guidance and strength to push that freedom out to the world to share with others. Amen.