"Fearfully... Wonderfully"

"I ask for the grace to pray and meditate faithfully.  I ask for patience, tolerance, empathy, compassion and gentleness.  I ask to abstain from anger, anxiety, arrogance, compulsive behaviour, cynicism, discouragement, and self importance.  I ask to know and follow Jesus more closely, seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly."


Psalm 139:13-15
¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
   Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵   My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.


1) "Inward parts;" "...knit me together in my mother's womb;" "...I am fearfully and wonderfully made;" "...wonderful are your works;" "...intricately woven in the depths of the earth;"


2) I just love this passage.  As an avid knitter, God as artisan appeals to me.  I know the love and attention that goes into creating a work.  Recently, a colleague was using the back side of a cross stitch contrasted to the right side to illustrate the difference between what we see, or what we show everyone about ourselves, vs. what we hide away, but is still there in our hearts.  But I observed, that when I knit, I put as much love and care into the "wrong side" of a garment as the "right side," as that's the side that will be next to my skin, and for those in the know, the "wrong side" of a work is the side that reveals the artisan's skill.  You'll never mistake the "write side" for the "wrong side", but the "wrong side" is still worked with love and attention.  I also think of how ever fiber of yarn goes through my fingers a dozen times when I'm making something: from winding and rewinding the yarn, to knitting, "tinking" back and reknitting the work, soaking, wringing, blocking... every inch of fiber goes through my hands multiple times.  There is no dark part in me that has not also been through the loving hands of the Artisan. "Fearfully," "Wonderfully" indeed.


3) What is the invitation in all this?  To let God be God in every strand of creation, especially when encountering that person with whom I'm experiencing tension and conflict, or who makes me particularly uncomfortable.


Breathprayer: "Fearfully... Wonderfully."