Advent 2016-5: 60 million trebles

I’m posting something different for today… It’s about loving our neighbours …

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ 

‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”  There is no commandment greater than these.’
‘Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’  ”  Mark 12:28-31

For some months now I’ve been involved in a fantastic project set up by an amazing woman called Ellen Roche.  Ellen wanted to do something to raise awareness of the plight of the 60 million refugees across the world.  And so she had a vision to create the world’s largest yarn blanket by next summer.  This yarn blanket will consist of joining together smaller square blankets 36 inches by 36 inches.  The aim is for the sum total of all the crochet treble stitches in all the blankets to add up to more than 60 million trebles – one stitch, one life.  I joined in when the project had less than 2 million trebles and it now has more than 10 million and new people are joining every day.

So far, I’ve made 4 blankets from various balls of wool I had around my home and I’m working on my 5th.  My four blankets contribute just over 40,000 trebles to the project.

Ellen is hoping to construct the large blanket at a London venue next summer.  Afterwards the individual blankets will be detached and half sent to UK charities and half sent to refugees in other countries.

I am proud to be part of this compassionate movement both to raise awareness and to provide comforting, warm blankets to those in need.

Why not join us? If you can crochet or knit you can join in.  The Facebook group can be found at Sixty Million Trebles.

If you don’t knit or crochet perhaps you know someone who does?  Please pass on these details and let’s show our neighbours some love.

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WIP

If you don’t live your life in the world of art and craft then you may not know what a WIP is.

A Work In Progress is something that gets started and revisited to move it along a little further each time.

Here is one of mine…

It’s a crocheted heart blanket made from white yarn with scraps of pinks and reds (whatever is at hand). You can find the pattern to make it yourself here

I have several … no actually, loads, of WIPs. I used to get stressed about them. All these unfinished things that were waiting for completion…

… but the truth is, these WIPs are not really very much about the end product, they’re more to do with the journey. We’re all familiar with the quote ‘Life is a journey not a destination’, but how many of us live like we believe that?

I, myself, am most definitely a Work In Progress. People often think that Christians think they have ‘arrived’; that we’ve got it all sorted; that we have all the answers and are just waiting for our reward in heaven.

But the truth is that we are all on a journey; our own special journey that is as unique to us as we are ourselves unique. I strive to be all that God wants me to be; all that Jesus modelled; all that I know I ought to be. But most days I fail in some way … because I’m a Work In Progress.

Fortunately, I have a God who knows I’m not perfect and a Saviour who has died that I can be forgiven … over and over again if necessary.

And whilst I am excited about my eternal destination, actually at the moment, it’s the journey that excites me most, because I know that living in the way that God wants is what gives me life.

Proverbs 3 is a wonderful chapter of the Bible and there are three verses which give me both comfort and encouragement as a Work In Progress …

‘Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.’ (v3)

‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.’ (v5-6)