Osborn Fiber Studio

This is the thousandth post on this blog, ever since I first started blogging about knitting in 2009. I’d blogged in fits and spurts before, about books and movies and whatever else was on my mind, but writing about what I was knitting was motivating and inspiring in a new way. It was a lonely, confused, transitional time in my life, but the combination of making and writing about it was a touch of order when not much else made sense.

This blog has followed my life ever since. From…
… those first posts on Xanga, whose pictures have been broken between blog migrations (though apparently you can still see some of them if you click the links!)
… to having my own dedicated site and wool business (I can’t find exactly where all that madness started, but here’s a good post)
… to learning about natural dyeing (fun fact: this is still my most visited post)
… to the first of the unspeakable sadnesses that changed my life
… to giving it all up to move to seminary,
… to the launch of my design career (such as it is),
… to starting a family,
… to a total obsession with food,
… to giving it all up again to move to a new life in the far north of Canada.

My life has changed so many times in those eight years. My calling has changed, and will go on shifting. My writing voice has changed, I’m sure. But I’ve always had this outlet: making and writing about it.

I just read a book called Me, Myself, and Bob, by Phil Vischer, creator of VeggieTales. I don’t remember the last time a non-fiction book gripped me like this. It’s a book about spectacular dreams and spectacular failures, and what God did with one ambitious, creative, gifted man.

The place God took Phil by the end of his tale was eye-opening for me. I’ve wondered for years what God is going to do with my creative side, with my need to write and make, with this space. I’ve tried executing big schemes and visions on my own, and they mostly left me tired and disappointed. I gave up trying to seize my own vision for the future a while ago. But I still find myself uncomfortable without a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) to sink my teeth into, and I keep wondering why God doesn’t drop one into my lap. And why not? Doesn’t God want me to be motivated and excited? Doesn’t he want me to use my gifts? Doesn’t he want me to have an impact? I have ideas – no less than four ideas for pattern books, for a start – but every time I consider pursuing one, I hear from on high a resounding “nope.”

Then Phil says, with the calm confidence of a lesson learned with unimaginable pain: Where I am five years from now is not my business. My business is to walk with God. Anything worth creating comes from waiting on him.

Those statements landed in my heart with a “thunk.” I’m waiting for something that may never come. God has me exactly where he wants me: waiting on him. Probably forever. And he’ll happily let me squirm until I learn to be content with that.

So there it is. This blog has meandered through one thousand posts of wildly varied seeking, to arrive at a point where I have no vision at all. I’ll keep making and writing about it, until the Holy Spirit says I shouldn’t. Things will happen, and they won’t. I have to learn to live with that, and pour my passion into the things that really matter: cherishing my family, being present for my friends, loving my neighbors, and sitting in the quiet heart-to-heart with God. You know, the things I’m naturally not much good at.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being with me on this journey. So many of you readers who have been with me the longest aren’t even crafters, but are open to learning just because we’re connected and you care. That means so much to me. Thank you also for enduring more of these naval-gazing posts over the past few years as I’ve come to terms with knowing less and less of my direction. There are a zillion things to do on the internet, and only so many minutes in your day, and you’re not obligated to spend any of them with me. So, thank you.

I’ll close with the words God said another favorite early-CGI children’s character: Wormie the common caterpillar. “I love you. But I’m not finished with you yet.”