Raising kids is like stitching together a whole life. Of course, you don’t realize it at first. When you are expecting a child, you are overjoyed and a bit stunned that this grand masterpiece bears your name. The needle has been threaded, and it is yours to take up and sew.

When they’re newborns, it’s like needlepoint. The pattern of the round-the-clock routine you enter with your baby of feeding, changing diapers, playing, and sleeping, on repeat for several months, is painstaking work, but a blessing beyond measure as you tend to their needs for survival and comfort. The stitches are close together, tight, and precise, forming a beautiful pattern.

As toddlers, it’s more like latch hook! You are sleeping now, and the days run together in a more normal pattern of playdates, snacks, learning, and laughter. The push and pull of every day create a picture full of color and meaning, as you grab the thread you need and easily find its proper place in the pattern provided.  It is easier as you gain your footing and some confidence in your identity as a parent.

As your children start to get a bit older and head off to school, it’s sort of like using a sewing machine. Everything is regulated, and it seems like you respond automatically according to school hours, work calendars, and scheduled sporting events. It is fast, efficient, and very busy. The order is comforting but sometimes worrisome as the years tick by so swiftly. You can almost hear the sewing machine stamping out the pattern.

As your children approach adulthood, the stitches loosen and become farther apart. You are relegated to the side seams, not the center pattern, and now you begin to worry that what’s inside will fall out through the stitches you’ve made. You hope that what you’ve created over the years is big enough to remain intact and not get lost, as life shuffles things around a bit. The pattern is changing, unfamiliar, and you begin to see that you are no longer doing the sewing.

Soon, they move out to live on their own and eventually start their own families. You are no longer privy to all the little details of their everyday lives. But the big things, the love you share, the bond you have, that remains. You wonder if it was really you doing the sewing in the first place.

But in truth, it is God’s hand and His good plan for each of us that guides the pattern that emerges as we walk with Him. As I pray for God’s perspective on these things, I’m reminded that he is the Grand Weaver. He holds the needle and thread of my life – and the lives of my children.  He is creating a beautiful tapestry, skillfully weaving my life with my husband’s and our children’s lives as they expand their own families and grow, creating a beautiful picture out of it all.

I don’t want to be that errant thread that keeps unraveling! Or that pulls against the pattern of all the other stitches that He is making, wrinkling his work and marring whatever beautiful image He is creating through it all.

I want to remember that God is the one who hems me in. There is nothing to fear as He carries out His plan for my life, and theirs. I want to be content to wait until the final picture is revealed.

“Lord, help me to remember this. Help me to be an example of this to my children, so they can be encouraged and confident in you. I want them to know and follow you, so that you are revealed through the beautiful pattern of their lives. Amen.”

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5

I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. Colossians 2:2