Oooops

A while back our book club read Knitting by Anne Bartlett. The story is not really about knitting at all, although the heroine, Martha, does knit. The interesting thing that Martha does is take a small suitcase and two large bags with her everywhere she goes. To church, on the bus, to work, to tea in the afternoon, everywhere. The bags are cumbersome, hard to maneuver, and sometimes rule where she goes, where she sits, whether or not Martha can do the things she wants to do. The story weaves around the relationship between Martha and Sandra, Kate, and Cliff. It is not until the end that we find out about those bags and the suitcase: they contain all of Martha's knitting mistakes. Everything she has ever done wrong and intends to fix but either cannot or does not have time. In the end, the knitting mistakes do get corrected, but not by Martha. I won't reveal how - in case you want to read the book!

I have a couple of small knitting mistake projects. One has been in a bag for about 5 years, another for 2 years. There they sit, reminding me that I didn't do something right. They just sit in the craft room - I certainly don't want to take them anywhere with me!

How many of us are guilty of carrying our life's mistakes everywhere we go? My hand is raised high in the air right now. It is where the evil one can push my buttons. I can dredge up things I did in my childhood and they will bother me and haunt me. Our pastor challenged us on the first Sunday of 2010 to lay down those things that burden us and haunt us - lay them at Jesus feet and let them go. The things we drag around are just as heavy and burdensome as Martha's bags and suitcase. Yet we continue to drag around junk with us all the time.

This is still a challenge for me. I am not there - God is not finished with me yet. Am I alone in this or there others who are dragging stuff around that has no purpose in their Kingdom work? Let's pray for each other to dump the useless stuff.