I’m almost finished knitting a little blue baby’s blanket–twelve blocks, six different designs, sewn together. How exciting it is to be expecting another great grand baby! As I knit I whisper prayers for Baby Cooper, prayers for Mommy Allie and Daddy Charles D. Aside from the excitement of the project’s purpose, I do just love the rhythm of knitting. It quiets me, makes me feel put together. And sometimes God shows me a new perspective, as He has done lately.

There are designs in each rectangular block–one big heart on one, three smaller hearts at an angle in another, a big star, seven small hearts, a plain piece, and a really fun plaid (fun because it was possible, but challenging!). Every single stitch in each rectangle is part of the whole design so one small mistake is actually a big mistake. A heart might have a bump on one side, a star’s point might be missing, the plaid could look more like gobbledy-gook. In my eagerness I knit too quickly sometimes. Mistakes happen. Then I have to take stitches off the needles and work the mistakes out.

That’s what God does in my life, I think. He takes stitches off the needles and works the mistakes out. Only He does so much better than I. He often makes something beautiful of my life mistakes!

It is really fun to see the design of a heart or a star begin to reveal itself. Someone worked hard figuring out just how many knit stitches or purl stitches, and how many seed stitches should be on each row. Sometimes the pattern seems so very slow showing itself. The stars and hearts are nothing but a nursery school squiggle picture.

I was thinking about that designer the other day as I sat knitting with a cat asleep in my lap and Amy Grant singing “Amazing Grace” on You Tube. That person who worked the pattern out had a vision of the finished project. She saw the whole thing, frontwards and backwards. She knew every stitch it would take to make a perfect design.

The Lord knows us through and through. He knows the steps we need to take, and repairs our miss steps all along the way. He also prepares us for what is ahead. He sees the whole picture. He sees each block of our lives, the bad choices, the pitfalls ahead, our heartfelt repentance, our fervent desires, everything. When tragedy happens, we can’t understand why. We simply need to trust that He sees the whole block, the whole blanket, our whole life, the whole world from beginning of time to infinity.

My blocks haven’t all turned out perfectly. But I’m knitting with love, repairing mistakes as I go, and trusting that pattern maker who saw the whole design of this cot blanket, and planned every single stitch.

I’m confident God knows His plan for all of us, including Baby Cooper.

He has made everything beautiful in his time. He has also set eternity in the human heart: yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11