Today is a stitching day. I'll be spending it at my sewing machine and ironing board, focusing on straight and even lines of thread. This act of focus often allows me to let my mind wander, a form of hypnosis, I suppose. As I link the pieces of fabric together, I also begin to stitch together memories, questions, dreams. Today I have some special prayers to meditate on, and while I sew, I'll offer them up.
With my sewing project, I know the end result, my aim. I don't know entirely what I'm seeking as I pray. Sometimes that's why I sew or knit when I have questions or when I talk to God. It's like those helpful parenting articles I used to read (in my mother's magazines as a teenager myself, actually) that suggested talking to kids about "tough topics" while driving in the car. There is both a level of distraction in not having to be face-to-face, and a level of captivity in sitting in a moving vehicle. When I work a project while I pray, I'm a little trapped by the scope, a little distracted in my focus on something else.
That's not to say I don't pray face-to-face. Or that I don't ever focus exclusively on the One to whom I'm conversing. Just that today, with the needs I have - both in my heart and in Christmas preparation - I am grateful that the Lord and I can work side by side today. That I can have time with Him always. And that we both know that I will, at some point today (when my alarm goes off) I will simply sit at His feet.
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