I was looking through my old craft supplies when I found some thick wool yarn. It was leftover from when I tried my hand at macramé, the art of weaving threads or cords together into simple or intricate knots. It was an activity with the community group I attended at my church.

Holding the remaining wool yarn in my hand brought me back to the devotional I led that evening, a brief message that relates back to Jesus:

I like to imagine my life as a long piece of string. It comes from my love of greek mythology, lives were represented by a thread, measured to determine the length of a person’s life, and cut by the Fates when it was meant to be over.

I carry this imagery with me. Sometimes it feels like I experience these painful knots in my life. I get spiritually or emotionally entangled in sin or adversity. I try to untangle the knots, often by myself, and often creating more complex knots.

But I need to realize the knots in my life aren’t meant to be undone, that it was placed there with intention. When I stop and take closer notice to this portion of my life string, I see the knot isn’t an accidental mess, but an intricate design.

Our lives aren’t simple cords of string. The Lord is weaving art.

And this truth affects me in three ways:
1 Love God for designing these knots. Trust and rely on His workmanship. Therefore…
2 Love myself by accepting my knots, my complexities. Making it easier to…
3 Love others by accepting their knots, their complexities.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10