The Cross-Stitch

The last two weeks have been hard. I think the excitement of the new adventure wore off a little, and I just started feeling the extreme loneliness and uncertainty and emotional rollercoaster of starting over. Somedays, I come home feeling relatively good, and then at the least little thing, I just crumble and start missing home and friends and that sense of familiarity, and then shortly after that I would pull myself together and start to get excited again about being here. It’s a rollercoaster; it has been, and it probably will be for awhile.

Several weeks ago, while putting stuff away and going through boxes and whatnot, I found an old cross-stitch pattern that I started when I was a child. My grandmother and I used to do it together when I spent my summers with her. This week, I pulled it out when I was really lonely and bored and in want of something productive to do. The pattern I had started so long ago was a little boy praying. I dusted it off and picked it up and decided to complete it for my new nephew-to-be due in June.

For those of you who may not know, I do not sew. I am not the domestic type at all and neither cooking nor sewing are on my list of fun things to do. But something appealed to me about it, so I picked it up anyway. I looked at the stitches that I had done so many years ago – they were awkward and tentative, far from tight and pretty. The underside revealed a mesh of threads, quite messy and rough. But from the front, you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The foundation was there. As I started again, it was rough going – the thread broke, or it knotted, or I didn’t follow the pattern right. The stitches aren’t even and far from perfect. But slowly and surely the picture starts to take shape, almost in spite of me and my shortcomings.

As I got into a rhythm with it, my tears dried up and my lonliness started to melt. I could sense God reminding me that even when I feel like a mess, He is arranging the stitches and working the pieces together for good, for a picture that will be beautiful in the end. Even when it’s rough and threads break and things seem like they are unraveling, it’s about staying the course and following the Guide, day by day, letting Him work and untangle and build something worthwhile.

I’m excited to finish the pattern and give it to my brother & sister in law for my nephew. It will be something little that comes with a lot of love and a good story to tell.

Please continue to pray for me. The transition is hard. I know it will get better, and I know God is at work in the midst of it. I am so thankful for wonderful friends and family, all the prayers and notes of encouragement that have made it easier. I don’t know how people make it without that kind of support.