I'm unraveling.
A 3/4 inch portion of my C-section incision has not healed yet. I have a gap in my abdomen and last week it got infected. I feel like a sweater with a stray thread. One tug and I might come apart completely.
There's a story in that somewhere, but it's not one I want to tell now.
I did some internet research on this situation and discovered that it's not that uncommon, especially when "glue" or sutures are used instead of staples. What is uncommon, I think, is when your incision won't close and you've just had your seventh child and you are scheduled to move 1000 miles in 3 weeks and there is no company paying for your move, so you have to do all your packing yourself, and it's just you and your husband and 7 kids aged 13 and under and that open slit in your belly, which kind of makes you sick every time you look at it. The doctor treats it like it's no big deal... but it is a big deal if you (like me) are in that situation. And it is a big deal if you (like me) are the child of a woman who died in childbirth. And the nurses on the phone start to sound more worried when it's taken an extra 10 days and still not closed.
Sometimes when you unravel, you realize the sweater you were knitting was lopsided, with one arm too long and an uneven number of stitches up the side, and maybe it was time to pull it all out and start all over anyway. And if only you could have noticed that before the thorns caught hold of it and you tugged open that hole!
Well, hopefully the unnecessary things are unraveling, too. The "trying to be someone I'm not". The "I'm really worried about two mortgages." The "why don't my kids ever listen to me". The "there's so much to do around here and this place is always such a wreck!"
There's only so much stress you can knit into a life before everything comes undone.
I don't know what God has in mind for us. I do know that moving was an answer to prayer... long and constant prayer. And I know that God's time is not our time.
But I do hope that God will consent to put a few more stitches in this worn-out sweater. It may not be fancy, but when the frayed sleeve is repaired and the hole patched, I think it will be sturdy, warm, and useful, and will fit me just fine.