Pulling stitches

So  I have been working on these quilts for my friends littles, made from their baby t-shirts.  I have been TERRIFIED to mess them up, because of the whole *irreplacable* aspect.

You know what comes next.

Trying to be SO careful to NOT make a mistake, I botched it.

Thankfully, only with the backing.  I have been puzzling over this for days.  How do I fix it?  Without having to take apart the whole thing?

Man, I had a WHOLE LOT OF TIME to think while I was picking out those stitches.  It seems mindless, but you can't really do anything else.  So I thought.

I get to points in life, where I think I have it all together.  You know?  This is pretty good, looks great, going smooth, doing what I'm supposed to do...

BAM!

Something is wrong.  It might even be something no one else can see, certainly I don't think there is a problem .... but God does.  He has a different plan, or needs to correct something in me, or sometimes, WHO KNOWS?  And all of a sudden, the stitches are being pulled out.  Sometimes, one at a time.  This falls through, then that, then the other, then another... or He gets out the seam ripper and T-E-A-R!  It all comes unraveled at once.

I have learned to recognize these times earlier as I get older.  It doesn't make them any easier. Relationships, jobs, family situations, opportunities - more than once I have thought that we were finally where God wanted  us, doing what He called us to do.  Something must not have been just right!

The Bible never mentions quilting (that I have found), but it does call God the Potter.  He wants us to be His masterpiece!  I am sure that if that quilt could have complained about me picking at those stitches, and then shoving it all through the machine, again, it would have.  I know that when God smacks me back on the potter's wheel and shapes me differently, I do.

I just hope one of these days he shapes me like Tyra Banks.  :P.