Zig-Zag

God loves me so much that He gives me so many chances that even the Angels did not receive… 

Saint Peter Attempting to Walk on Water (François Boucher)

My daughter really enjoyed learning to sew at school.  She clearly takes after her maternal aunts and not her mother, because I find sewing incredibly frustrating for a number of reasons.  One of the reasons that sewing is frustrating to me is that I have no real talent in the activity and no real interest in it either.  I find the whole exercise of trying to make something out of fabric very challenging because first you need to find the fabric and choose it based on its potential to look great.  Then you have to work on it to make sure that it looks okay and makes sense in the capacity that you have designed it.  Something that looks beautiful in my mind might look very unflattering on my body, for example, and then that would mean that I had done a whole lot of work to end up with something that is disastrous.

One of the most annoying things about sewing – in my mind – is that there is no linear progression.  Sometimes you move up and other times you go backwards.  Sometimes you need to unpick work that took you some time to prepare.  Other times, that work needs to be cut out and started again.  Sometimes you need to draw onto the fabric, iron it and then measure again and then adjust and re-draw and iron again and move on.

Nothing really goes forward in a straight line.  Everything is a zig-zag.  In fact, zig-zag works best in sewing.  After all, there are pinking shears that actually cut fabric in a zig-zag instead of in a straight line to minimise fraying and make better use of the fabric.

I have been thinking of this over the last few days as I have been thinking about my journey to holiness…

You see, God accepts that things will not always work in a straight line.  He understands that sometimes things move forward quickly and other times we have to circle back and make changes and do things over and over again so that we can get them done properly.  God takes time for the zig-zag.

There is great Grace in this time and patience that God allows.  When He makes space for us in our weakness what He is really doing is making space for me to do things over and again until I please Him.  This is such a blessing.  It means that God allows me to get it wrong and make mistakes.  He does not expect me to be perfect all the time and He knows that I might need to circle back over a mistake and make the mistake again before I move forward.  What a blessing this really is!

Today I realise that God loves me so much that He gives me so many chances that even the Angels did not receive…  How could I ever thank my Beloved for letting me zig-zag?  How could I?

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.