The Rhyming Seamstress

Uberprutser [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons[/caption]Be open to plans other than your own. That’s what I’m trying to embrace this year. The kids are getting older, things are changing, and I’ve already had a few surprises for the coming year even with it just barely begun. Fortunately, over the holidays I had a happy reminder of the beauty of serendipity. It started with my older daughter wanting a sewing machine for Christmas. She loves to craft, and in particular has long enjoyed sewing. We don’t have a sewing machine, so heretofore all her needlework has been done by hand. But this year she wanted to change that: asked for a sewing machine for Christmas. Frankly, I was resistant. Mostly because it sounded like a hassle. My mom is a huge sewer and I can remember many afternoons as a kid standing at her elbow as she worked her magic with her sewing machine. I was always fascinated with all the moving parts: spinning spools, pressing pedals, running thread, and the flashing needle. But now, considering the prospect of putting all those moving parts into working order, the complications of such a contraption seemed daunting and I didn’t want to spend my Christmas enmeshed in a tangled web of thread and needles and misplaced bobbins as I tried to decipher the directions and get the darn thing working. I just didn’t want to mess with it. But my mom encouraged me. She told me it wasn’t nearly as complex as I thought. And as a sewer, she told me my daughter would love discovering all the possibilities a sewing machine would open for her. So I was convinced and took the plunge. Santa brought a sewing machine! And Mom was right! It really wasn’t that bad to get it operating, and my daughter has been pretty much off and running on her own since the initial set-up. And she loves it! When she woke up this morning, she came out of her room and first thing told me, “Dad, I made up a poem while I was lying in bed!” “Great!” I said. “Let’s hear it!” So she recited:

I like to sew As you may know I like to hear my scissors clip I like it when my scissors snip I like it when my sewing machine goes whir And I like it when my needle is a blur I like it when my fabric takes shapes Be it pillows, dolls, or drapes.

So I would call the sewing machine a success! My daughter had a great Christmas: Rhyming to the rhythm of the sewing needle While through her mind winding words did wheedle. And the joy the sewing machine brought came unexpectedly (at least for me). It was not part of my initial plans for the holidays, but I’m glad it inserted itself into our Christmas. It made the holiday for my daughter and even led her to “stitch together” some great lines of verse! The experience reminded me of Saint Padre Pio’s words: “God is served only when He is served according to His will.” God calls us to what He wants us to do, which may require us to be open to the unexpected. Because sometimes, as it was for Abraham and David and Mary and Joseph and Paul and about a thousand other people in the Bible, what God calls us to may be very different than the plans we made for ourselves. So I’m going to try to be more open to unexpected possibilities in the year ahead and follow the example of the rhyming seamstress to see where the adventure leads!