Thoughts on Faith

In the long while that I've had this blog, I've never posted anything about my faith or beliefs regarding life and philosophy and whatnot. I have a friend who has a blog on this site and her main usage of it is to write devotional poetry about her faith. I'm not really a poet, and I don't use writing as a confirmation of my faith. And that's OK. But I guess I want to share with the world just a couple of things regarding faith and my beliefs. For the record, I'm not going to get all “Jesus-y” and preachy, because I'm not really comfortable with that sort of thing.

I think that part of Christianity, along with most other religions, is affirming that things DO happen for a reason and events that happen are in no way coincidences, they are reminders of an all powerful being that exists beyond our world (in my case, the Holy Trinity and God). Even before I became a Christian, I believed things did happen for a reason, but that affirmation continues to grow stronger as my faith and my religious believes grow and change with the events that happen in my life.

A few days ago, my sister, Tara, was involved in a serious bike accident. She received a lot of road rash and a severe concussion as a result—a concussion that caused her to lose all memory of the incident and the hours after it. You would think that her being harmed was not right; after all, if God is good, then why must everyone (and Tara in this case) suffer such trauma? Well, here's the thing. The premise of the accident was that Tara was going down a hill and hit a couple of jagged potholes. She went over the handlebars and fell on her head. I wasn't there, so how do I know? She had her accident right in front of someone's home and some people were outside and saw it happen. It gets weirder when the man who saw the accident knew my grandfather AND we share the same last name with him (he's my paternal grandfather). So when she told him her name (she couldn't tell him much else, not even her age), he called my grandfather immediately after calling 911.

So to me, the proof of God is in these two points:

1. She was wearing her helmet. The helmet was destroyed and there is a rock embedded in it that we still can't get out. That rock would have been in her head. She could have gotten brain damage or died without it.
2. The fact that she crashed right in front of a place where my grandfather and I could be reached immediately. We live in a rural area—she could have had the accident where there was no one around to help her and when we got there she had heavy amnesia and confusion. She could have stumbled down the road and gotten hit and killed by a car.

My sister is one of the most important people in my life. We've helped each other out on many, many occasions and there are times where I feel I have nowhere to turn except for her friendship and love. We are twins and we are connected in so many ways—now we are connected in our faith in God. No matter how many miles separate us, we are connected through our words and our spirits. What happened to my sister on Thursday and the events surrounding her accident are a reminder to me that there is a God.

Finishing What Was Started a Generation Ago

Those of you who read this blog may know that I've become obsessed in the past few months with needlework, that is, knitting and crochet. It's become one of my favorite hobbies, surpassing a few I've had in the past. Lately, I've been working on at least one project at one time; sometimes two and sometimes even three. It's something fun I like to do, relaxing, and I've even found a community of fellow knitters and crocheters on the internet. Finding people who have this similar interest is really awesome because it's not that fun if you're just doing it by yourself.

I knit more than I crochet. I've been slowly learning crochet techniques, but it's a slow process. I know the three basic crochet stitches, but I can do more with knitting. If you were to ask me which one I liked more, I will still tell you knitting, but it's becoming more of a tie now. You can do a lot with both; I've been incorporating both crocheting in knitting in some of my pieces recently and it's actually pretty cool how you can do that.

Last weekend, I caved and decided to buy a bag of what looked to be a bag of yarn in white and brown shades. I have a lot of yarn in many different colors, mostly acrylic, but I didn't have too much of whites or browns so it was justifiable in that regard.

When I opened the bag, there was a piece of yellowed paper with a pattern. I had seen the paper in the bag when I bought it but I thought nothing of it. I wasn't planning on using the pattern anyway; I had other things in mind for the yarn I was buying.

However, when I read the pattern, I couldn't help but stare in shock. The pattern, which looked like it had been typed on a typewriter instead of a computer, had a name, place, and date on the top. It said:

“Indian Afghan from Glenda Hartnick, Bushnell, Fla. 2/78”

Of course, the '78 is 1978. So I got pretty excited at that point. The paper was almost 40 years old! Intrigued, I looked at the yarn label, which looked pretty old. The label said, “Phildar Pegase 206,” and on the other side stated that the yarn was made in France. When I got home, I did a quick search of the yarn on the internet. Phildar, which I'd never heard of before, is indeed an exclusive French brand. How it got to the states in the late 70s, I'm not sure. What confirmed my suspicions that the “Pegase 206” was indeed out of date was the fact that I couldn't find that specific brand anywhere. I also saw skeins of “Pegase 206” on sites like Etsy and Ebay going for about $25-30.

What convinced me the most about the fact that the yarn and the pattern were connected is that the original colors for the pattern were black, red, grey, and white. However, the person who owned the yarn and the pattern wrote the colors brown, rust, beige, and off-white next to the original colors in cursive—the same exact colors that were in the bag. The person who originally owned the yarn had also started dividing the yarn into smaller skeins for the pattern, as the pattern is crocheted row by row, each row worked separately across with a fringe at the end.

When I get the correct hook for the pattern, I'll start working on the afghan.Whoever originally owned the yarn and pattern over 30 years ago never got the opportunity to finish what they wanted to start. I really wish I could get the whole story behind this, but I know I never will. I do know that the amount of satisfaction that I will feel when I finish this afghan that this person never got to finish will be paramount.

I am giving away the said pattern to anyone who wants to have it; after all, I wasn't the one who wrote it so I feel that everyone should enjoy it. It's actually quite simple. I am not much of a crocheter but I understand the pattern so it's something a beginner could accomplish easily.

I'll probably write another post soon about knitting or crocheting, or possibly farming, as I have a summer farming job that is shaping up to be quite interesting.