Today I cast on a new knitting project using the long tail cast on method. I didn't have to think about how to do it. I didn't pull up a YouTube tutorial or refresh my memory with a quick YouTube search like I have to do when knitting a M1 increase stitch.
If I don't look, I get it wrong. When I do look, I find I already knew what to do. It's an annoying reality. But in time, I won't second guess it anymore. I will have knit the thing so much it will have become second nature. Like the long tail cast on. Like the SSK and K2TOG decrease stitches. Like knits and purls. Like joining in the round for a sock, hat or sweater.
Things that were once challenging no longer vex me. Not because I'm a great knitter but because I never stopped knitting. I never gave up.
I use the long tail cast on method with nearly every project. So it makes sense that I know it well. If I were a complete novice, on my third project, it would be ridiculous to beat myself up for mistakes.
I'm still learning.
Part of taking on a slow craft like this is understanding that growth is slow. You don't grow by knitting faster. But by knitting consistently. I try to knit every day.
We are hard on ourselves as disciples of Jesus too. We think we should be better than what we've actually lived. Sanctification is a lot like knitting. We’ve grown. We’re doing the basics, but there's always a new skill to gain, a more challenging project to stretch us and make us better.
We don't grow by doing the same thing over and over again. We grow by getting out of comfort zones. Doing something just a little bit different, a wee bit harder. A bit more like Jesus.
I have troublesome patterns in my life. Areas where I struggle to yield to Yah’s good and wise authority, where I shrink back to what I feel like doing rather than move forward in the good I know I should do.
Titus 3:8 says, “This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone” (NIV).
We should be careful to do good. To obey God. Careful to not drop a stitch. Careful to knit the next stitch according to pattern or we won't like the final product.
I'm being careful when I review a YouTube tutorial for the ninth time. When I do a quick Google search. When I reread the pattern instructions again and again and again.
I do this now so that maybe I won't have to do it as much next year.
If we lean into what God’s teaching us today, being intentional to keep at it even after we've fallen on our faces again, we will grow. It will get easier.
Good works get easier with time. If we consistently go after them.
Or as Galations 6:9 put it, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
If I got weary and gave up, I would not be knitting a cardigan right now. Or a sweater for loved one. I would have given up with the scarf or left that unfinished as well. I plan to apply this lesson to drawing and painting. And most importantly to the area of deepest sin struggle. By God’s grace, I will grow. And I will know the joy of the other side.
Love this! 💕