Since she was only forty-five years old she felt much too young to be a grandmother. However, it wasn’t long before she was thrilled with the fact that her oldest daughter, who had been married just a year, was expecting her first child. Although she had zero experience being a grandmother she decided to do the one thing she knew grandmothers often did—knit an outfit for the new baby.
She made up her mind that even though she didn’t know the first thing about knitting, this would be her labor of love. She secretly asked an older friend at church to teach her the basics. She purchased knitting needles and since it had already been determined that the baby was a boy she bought blue yarn and tediously began the ambitious project.
Knitting turned out to be a lot harder and more time-consuming than she anticipated. But night after night the young grandmother-to-be sat in front of the television and toiled away until eventually a tiny infant sweater began to take shape.
“It looks pretty good…if I have to say so myself!” she mused while at the same time trying to restrain her pride. She couldn’t wait to give it to her daughter at the baby shower that was planned by some of her daughter’s friends. “She’s going to be shocked and this sweater will mean a lot to her since I went to all this trouble,” she reasoned.
But one evening she left the nearly-finished sweater on the arm of the sofa while she went out for a couple of hours. To her horror when she returned she discovered the family dog had torn it to shreds. She never understood why their Toy Terrier would ever do such a thing but that precious little sweater had been ripped up to the point it was not even recognizable. She was understandably furious with the dog and so frustrated that all her work had gone for naught that she burst into tears. Her labor of love had been completely destroyed—so needlessly.
David used a knitting analogy in Psalm 139:13-16 to describe how God had formed him in his mother’s womb: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Have you ever wondered how God must feel when an abortionist rips apart a life that He has been carefully knitting together in a mother’s womb? It must not only incur His wrath, it must break His heart when the work of His hands is torn to shreds. What a dreadful thing it will be for those who have done so and never asked for His mercy and forgiveness to fall into the hands of the living God.
Do you ever wonder who those millions of people would have become had they been permitted to live and what kind of contribution they could be making? Forty five years ago did God begin knitting together an inventor who would have found an alternative energy source by now? Was he carefully fashioning a preacher who would now be poised to take the place of Billy Graham or a doctor who would have discovered a cure for cancer? Was He designing a talented political leader who would lead the nation to unity and prosperity?
I wonder who David had in mind when he wrote the final paragraph of Psalm 139. “If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:19-24).
On this “Sanctity of Life Sunday” we pray that our nation will repent and turn from the wickedness of abortion. We also pray for those who have had an abortion or have helped to advance an abortion – that they would repent and receive God’s forgiveness and comforting embrace of mercy and grace.
