“You could have chosen a better color,” my Dad said as he opened the hot pink scarf I had crocheted him for Christmas.  He’s probably right, but hey, I was about 8 or 9 and had limited funds and limited access to yarn.

My grandmother had taught me to crochet and I loved it, but I abandoned the craft for more than a decade.

Recently, a few of my friends had learned to crochet and they invited me to join them.  “Hooked on Thursdays,” we called ourselves.  I soon got the reputation for pulling out rows once I found a mistake.  (I joked that I got more money’s worth out of my yarn than others because I crocheted it more than once!)

I learned afterwards that it is called “frogging” when you tear out stitches because usually, like myself, you are tearing out row after row…

rip-it

rip-it

rip-it

…sounds like a frog.  The resulting pile of crinkled yarn is called “frogged” yarn.  If you have ever received a hat, scarf, cowl, or headband from me, I guarantee it has frogged yarn in it!

Life is like that.  We find a mistake we’ve made – sometimes years later – and as we repent and tear it out of our lives, the result can be painful as we rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.  We try to hook it back together, but sometimes in our frogging, the yarn is stretched a little more and the stitches look a little different.  That doesn’t mean that the frogging isn’t profitable.  For using frogged yarn still results in a beautiful product – usually more beautiful than if we had left the mistake untouched.  The Creator knows those stitches that were redone, but the world will not.  Sometimes we see those mistakes as worthless, but God uses them to shape us into what we become.