What Learning to Knit Taught Me about Myself, Faith, and Fertility

Our internet service has been spotty or out all this week...grrr!  Do you know how frustrating that is when I've been at home wanting to get things done online?  So here I sit in my office, catching up on internet things:-)  I've been wanting to blog a bunch of things all week, but since I'm here and my pictures are at home, I thought it would be good to post from my drafts.  I'm still working to complete those posts that I once started.  I'm down to two left!  This one gets the award for being in draft status the longest....since March of this year!!

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you may remember I took a "beginning" knitting class last winter that was really more of an intermediate class.  I wrestled through that class with all sorts of frustrations, and yet through the experience, God spoke to my heart volumnes about the infertility journey I was wrestling through at the same time.  Therefore, I put together a list of things I learned as a result of the knitting class that also applied to my IF journey at the beginning of 2011.

(Written in March 2011)

What learning to knit taught me about myself and my faith and how those same lessons correlate to my fertility (or lack thereof):

1. Character building takes time.  I did not learn to knit overnight.  Neither did I learn to accept my IF, pregnancy loss, or PCOS related health problems overnight.  Time builds great things through the pain.
2. Things not going as planned can prove to be a great thing.  I had orginally signed up for a different knitting class that I really wanted to take for 8 weeks.  I went to register the day it opened, and the class was already full.  I was so frustrated and disappointed.  Little did I know that this new class would open up with smaller enrollment, less projects to make, and less weeks of class time.  It proved to be so much better than I had expected and I was glad for that temporary frustration of the 1st full class.  I sense this is the same with my IF.  I sense God is going to do some amazing things, even though none of this IF was planned or chosen by me.
3. It's scary to do something unknown.  Even though I wanted to learn to knit, I was so scared of going to that first class by myself.  I was afraid I wouldn't fit in with the other ladies of the dominant culture here, and I was worried they'd spend the whole class talking about their kids- a topic I couldn't relate to.  My IF journey is scary as well.  I don't know what the future holds, and if I think about it too long, I get really freaked out.
4. Through all the toil and pain, the outcome is better than expected. Having finished the class, I can say it was worth all of the roughness at the beginning.  To have a finished product that I knit by myself is such an amazing accomplishment that was worth all the pain.  I hope the same is true of my IF journey.  I hope I am able to look back on it some day and say...wow, look at how much God molded me and changed me through that difficult time, and look at what a better person and better mom I am as a result!
5. Things may not always go as planned along the way.  Unexpected and unwanted changes may occur along the way, but they are for the greater good.  This was true of my class, and I pray it's true of my IF as well.
6. I easily cry and scream over frustration.  This is not a realization I was proud to experience.  There were times when I'd be sitting at home working on my knitting homework, and I would do a wrong stitch and then be stuck.  I couldn't figure out how to fix it on my own and had to wait until my teacher was available for help.  I'd get so frustrated because I had a deadline to meet and had set aside time to do my knitting homework only to get stuck.  I would cry and scream and swear.  Where did it all come from?  Sadly, the same has been true for my IF as well. 
7. I often wanted to run and abandon the project.  There were so many times that I wanted to quit my project and not return to class again.  I just couldn't take it any more and wanted to be done.  Many times I feel the same way about IF.  When is enough enough?
8. Perseverance pays off along with keeping a cool head.  Slow and steady gets the prize.  I started as the lowest person in my class of 6.  With extra practice sessions with my teacher and lots of hours knitting at home, I ended up being one of two people to finish their scarf in the class time!  I went from worst to first (almost).  I felt so good about sticking with the project, wrestling through those hard moments, and coming out a basic knitter!  I can only hope the same is true for my perseverance with Napro treatments!

A close-up picture of the finished project.  The pattern consisted of knitting and purling all across the row, so I was constantly switching back and forth between the two stitches the whole time.

And the full product- a keyhole scarf.  And while I may not wear the scarf as much as I would like because I downgraded from the expensive yarn to the cheap, scratchy stuff just so I could try to learn, the scarf represents so much more than just a scarf.  It represents things I've learned about my character and lessons I've been able to able to my current struggle of wanting desperately to be a mom.

And while we're talking about projects...here's the apron I made in the sewing class I took immediately after the knitting one.

And the hobo bag that came after the apron.

 

Inside the bag.

(December 2011)  It's sort of fun to go back over and read those things that I wrote 10 months ago.  Of course, I now have the advantage of viewing them through the eyes of one who is 20 weeks pregnant, but I still feel strongly about those lessons I learned about patience, perseverance, and hard work.  It's amazing what God uses to speak to us.  I had no clue that He's use a knitting class to speak to me about my infertility!  But isn't that one of the amazing things about our God...He surprises us in many and often ways!