Beginnings and Endings

Ecclesiastes 7:8-9

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

            I have a bed covering that I absolutely love but it is not usable.  I began each medallion with a colorful flower and centered each flower inside a white triangle.  I then arranged the triangles in circles and bound them with green stitches like leaves.  However, I miscalculated either the number of flowers or the geometry of the triangles, so I filled in some areas with white patches.  The border had to be elaborate, so I ruffled pink and rose to match the flowers, and then ribbed light and dark green for the leaves, and of course I had to add another frilly edge of white.  I have a queen-size bed.  The bed coverlet swallowed the bed and dragged along the floor for several feet.

            I was having so much fun with the pattern, I didn't know when to stop.

            Sometimes, I get so tired of the color or the pattern I'm doing, I quit working on it before it is finished.  I hope those people who received child-size shawls and twin bed-size afghans will forgive me; I just didn't know when to keep going.

Beginning a project is so much more exciting than finishing one.  But there is nothing useful about an unfinished shawl or an incorrectly sized afghan.

Sometimes, we need to just stop.  We need to know when something -- even a good thing -- is over.  Don't waste time longing for something that's done.  Think about the joy of beginning something new.  You only have one pair of hands.  You can't work on two projects at the same time.  End one so you can begin anew.

My God,

You know how stubborn I am.  You know how engrossed I can become in something.  Help me to understand that it is time to go on to something new.  Don’t let me fear new beginnings.  Don’t let me fear endings, either.  I have all of eternity ahead of me.  Teach me to let go and go on.  Amen.