James
I love the book of James, because it always seems to speak directly to me. When I need a reminder of where I am weak, and some reassurance that I can do better, this is the right place to go.
I am knitting Rock-a-bye by Gina House for my grandpa. His name is James, and that is my tenuous link from the socks to the book. But they are both what I need to be working on right now. I will keep you posted about how they are coming.
It’s been a while
Hello! It’s been a while! Being the non-technologically minded person that I am, when my password for wordpress stopped working, I tried to reset it, and then was unable to log in until I took the time, a very long time, to get it working. But I am back.
I have been reading, and knitting, but over the summer, I didn’t make much progess on this project. But I have recently knit another pair of Bible socks, and here they are.
I will come back later to tell you about what I read while I made these socks, but here first is the story of what happened while I knit them. This is copied from my post on Ravelry.
It was nine o’clock at night, and I was ready to start my fish socks. I was in my sewing room, which is in our basement, winding the yarn. I love my ball winder, but once again, it stopped working. So I sat and wound the yarn by hand, off the swift. I was even enjoying the quiet time, the so soft Beckon sliding between my fingers as I sat, no one calling me, nothing else to do but play with string. And then I heard it. Scritch scritch scritch. The sound was coming from my treadmill. The undeniable sound of a mouse. Was it under the running platform? I sure hoped so. I got up to check, but before I folded up the machine, I put on my running shoes. Why? I don’t know. But there was nothing underneath. I layed it down, and resumed winding, thinking how on earth am I going to get that mouse out of the treadmill without taking it apart? What if it bites the wiring? I didn’t want to hurt the mouse, I just wanted it out of there. I finished winding the yarn, and came upstairs. But it quickly became clear that I didn’t have enough of my first choice for fish colour, so back I went to the yarn winding. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brown blur. It ran off a shelf (where my wedding album is) and into a waste paper basket. The sound of a crinkling paper bag made me jump, and it ran away. But is was back in no time. I grabbed a bucket, and fit it into the garbage can as a lid, trapping the mouse. I ran upstairs, and woke my boy up. Calling his name did nothing, but the words Come and see what I caught had him wide eyed and out of bed in no time. His brother was not at all interested in waking up. We took the “trap” outside, and this is what we found.
See that cat food? I believe that my boys mixed it in there with some water, and I forgot about it. It must have been there for months. The candy wrapper indicates that my husband was in the sewing room. We had a cat until a month or so ago, when we gave her away because of my son’s allergies. When the cat’s away…
I was proud of myself. I caught the mouse, and dealt with it, by letting it go in the park, without having to wait for my husband to be home. But when I bragged to him, he told me that he had heard scrabbling behind the tv. The morning after my mouse took off away from us. We bought a humaine trap. I set it up, checked it yesterday morning, and guess what? There were four mice in there. FOUR. They were smaller, thinner, and a bit scraggly. I think the first mouse was their mom. Poor little fellas. Our neighbours have a snake. Enough said. So far, there haven’t been any more in the trap. I hope that my mouse adventures are as done as my socks.
Socks Raveled here.
Again, I am amazed
Once again, I am amazed by the gentle promptings that I am getting. The Lord is clearing his throat, nudging me to my own realizations of what I do, how I act, and what I should do, and how I should act.
This evening, reading in Mark, I was reminded that in my family, I am not being first by putting myself last. I am not serving my family in the ways that I should. I should be serving by doing the things I would rather not, like the cleaning, and the proper cooking, even on days when I don’t feel well, or my man won’t be home for dinner. I need to fix this. Thank you God, for reminding me.
Esther
Switcheroo Socks
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed Esther, both the reading and the knitting. Since it’s such a short book, I read it every night before bed, during the 6 day stretch that it took me to knit them. At first, I didn’t really get the underlying emotions in this book. It took me several days to see why King Xerxes would listen to his councillors, and depose the queen. I mean, all along I understood that her refusal to leave her banquet to go to the king at his would have been a big deal at the time. But finally I saw that it would be a big deal now. Reading between the lines, I figure that the king was a bit unsure of himself. He made no decisions without consulting his experts. This banquet he was giving was a big deal. In the third year of his reign, he invited all the nobles, officials, military leaders, and princes in his kingdom to celebrate with him. At the banquet in question, he also had all the people, from the least to the greatest, who were in the citadel of Susa. Esther 1:5. Here he was, showing his might as king, which was important, because I am sure with all the different cultures in his kingdom, many of them of conquered peoples, there must have been rumblings and plots to overthrow him. And his wife refused to come.
My husband is in no way powerful like Xerxes. But I respect him. I love him. I would not want to belittle him by refusing to show my face at an event this important to his career. The queen didn’t just say “Not tonight dear, I have a headache”, she showed how little she respected him, or cared for the outcome of this major political campaign. No wonder she had to go. In the next few paragraphs, the men agreed that if word got out, none of the women in the kingdom would listen to or respect thier husbands. As a girl raised to believe that I can do anything a man can do, I had to say, where is the problem here? Shouldn’t women respect men because they have earned that respect, not because traditionally they had no identity of their own? But then, as a married woman, I realized that if we are given permission to not care about our men, no, if we are led to not respect our men, what does that leave them? Would they respect us? Not a chance. And this was no heartless action. This was no easy decision. Chapter 2 starts out Later when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her.(2:1) This anger, and most likely hurt, went on for a while. He didn’t look for a new queen right away. But when he did, all the eligible young maidens in the land were required to go to the palace. (Kind of reminds me of Cinderella.) They were to spend a year getting beauty treatments until thier chance to go to the king would come. They got one night. And if he didn’t ask for them after that, they would stay in the harem forever. What sacrifice. No chance of a home, husband or family of thier own. And Esther was chosen to be queen! A young orphan girl. Alone in the world but for her cousin Mordecai. To be brave enough to go through with the audition, let alone to accept the staring role, is more than I think most of us would do. I am sure that she felt a conviction in her heart that she was where God wanted her to be. I think that’s why this book speaks to me. I have felt that conviction before, I knew, without a doubt, that I was where God wanted me to be, and that I was doing what he wanted me to do, and there was no way I could go wrong with that reasurance in my soul. That is something I want again. I want to live my whole life with that sort of conviction.
I feel like I have already written almost as much as the original author of Esther did, so I will leave it at this. I can’t wait to start another pair of Bible socks. I am still working my way through Mathew, I have hit a few reading set backs, mostly through my own sloth, but I hope to get to another pair of socks after a few more New Testament books are under my belt. Thank you for reading.
Fit for a queen
Guess what? I have started a pair of Bible socks! I pulled out some beautiful Kells Sport in Megan, and thought at first it wanted to be Craic. But I quickly realized that while the colourway is light, and almost tone on tone, it would not due for that pattern. When I came across Switcheroo Socks from Knitting Socks with Handpainted yarns, I knew that Megan wanted to be those socks. As I started knitting, I thought of my good friend Megan, who I have been missing lately, as she is brewing up her 8th child, and has gone off the knitting for a while. The colourway is fresh, soft, and beautiful, just like Megan. And I realized that I was meditating on Meg’s favorite book of the bible as I knit. Esther. The yarn is perfect for that book, a lovely colourway, with depth and flashes of brightness, can I compare that to insight? The yarn base is a sport weight, soft, yet strong. I imagine that Queen Esther was all thes things as well. Chosen to marry a king she hardly knew, risking her life to save her people when he misguidedly agreed to a law that allowed anyone to kill Jews. And this pattern is so pretty, so delicate, but with the underlying strength of the yarn, it’s perfect. I am so excited to have started this. I will read the book of Esther until the socks are done, and then get back to Mathew, where I am currently reading. I have some catching up to do on the blog, for sure. I hope you are as excited as I am!
Jonah
I think that pretty much any one who will actually read this blog already knows the story of Jonah and the big fish. It’s a story that is in every one of the kids bible books we have. But they usually end with the whale spitting Jonah out. What happens after that?
Jonah went to Nineveh. He didn’t want to, he ran away, but he learned his lesson, and he went. When he got there, he proclaimed God’s message, and the people actually listened. Right away,
The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Jonah 3:5
It goes on to say that when the news reached the king, he did the same. I love that the people didn’t wait for instructions from the king. They did what was right, as soon as they recieved chastisement, and he followed suit. God saw what they did, and changed his mind about the punishment he had said was coming. And this made Jonah angry. He was upset that after all he had gone through to get to Nineveh, there was no punishment forthcoming. He didn’t rejoice in their salvation. God even asked him if he had any right to be angry. But still, after this, he went and found a place to watch from outside the city, to see what would happen. He trusted God enough to go to Ninevah, but he didn’t trust in God’s word of forgiveness. So God made a vine grow to give Jonah shade and shelter from the sun. Jonah was happy, and clearly felt that he deserved that shade. But then God made the vine wither and die, and Jonah again was angry with God. How often do we do the same thing? Treat blessings as our right, and losses as an insult? God again asked Jonah if he had any right to be angry. He pointed out to the man that the vine was just a plant, and that there were more than 120,000 people in Nineveh, and that they were much more deserving of concern than the vine was.
Our priorities are important, not just to us, but to God. He sees what is really in our hearts by what is important to us. These socks will have vines on them, to remind me to value what is important to God over what is temporary and not worth much.
Obadiah
Obadiah has a short, important message.
The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. Obadiah 15
What we do, how we treat people, how we speak to them, or act to them, we will get that back. Interestingly, it doesn’t say that we will get that back from the person we give it to. We can expect rudeness from someone we are rude to, or a smile from someone we smile at. But it says upon your own head. This seems to me to mean that it will be heaped on your head. What ever you give will be returned to you in larger amounts. If we treat someone with distain, distain from God will be ours. How frightening! If we treat someone with love, love from God will be ours. How exciting! I must remember to chose good not evil, like Amos reminded us last time.
These socks will have to be about love. Gentleness, kindness, prayer, compassion, commitment, faith, and all that is good. That’s not too much to ask from some sticks and string, is it?
Amos
Amos points out the many, many transgressions of the people of Israel. He also points out the transgressions of all people today. We have not learned, as a global community, the accusations are still valid. We oppress the poor, we put ourselves first, we expect to be pampered. Obviously, this isn’t true of every person in the whole wide world, but I expect that it is true for most. The signs sent by God to make the people return to him are still being sent today. Empty stomachs. Failed harvests. Sickness. War. These are still everywhere. And yet for the most part, we don’t turn to God. And yet he says
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:14-15
Just as you say he is. There is no way around that. Proclaiming God with our lips but not our hearts is not good enough. Words without actions, talk without real conviction, it’s just not sufficient. There is no easy gliding over these words, no smug comfort from just doing enough. What a pointed reminder, and a necessary one, at least for me.
I think the socks for this book will be black, or at least very dark. There are several references to the fact that God brings the darkness as well as the light, and especially that a time of darkness will come. One day there will be restoration, but first, darkness.
Joel
The book of Joel is set among devastating times. Fire and ravenous wild beasts are in abundance, food, water, joy and comfort are in short supply. An army of locusts appears, galloping along like cavalry, advancing like a mighty army. There are no walls that stop them, there are no hearts that do not fear them. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? Joel 2:11B I have read that this passage is prophetic, that the army of locust will appear in the tribulation. This seems like a time with no hope. One locust is just a bug, but an army of this size is inconceivable. Who could endure it? Only these:
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalemthere will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls. Joel 2:32
My education on this book is almost non existant, really. But it seems clear to me that the survivors that are refered to here are not just those who survive the famine, drought, wild animals and fire. I think it means all those who were left when those things started. All of those who were left behind. My heart aches for loved ones who at this point would be left behind. My prayer is that they will call out to the Lord, before the suffering hits them.
The socks for this book will have to be bug socks, I think. Do you have any pattern ideas? These would be great, but I don’t have this magazine. Or there are numerous baby bootie patterns that are bugs. Maybe those would be right. Hmmmm. I think I will need a fun pattern for this sad book.
