Soap for Jesus

I laughed half of the way home. It had been a completely rubbish day. I should've been expecting it after the G+ Hangout OYAN prayer group starting up the night before, but somehow I keep forgetting that Satan attacks whenever we unite in spirit to draw close to the Lord, and usually (for me) in that way. I woke up at 6am to see my Mom off, went back upstairs, set my mobile phone alarm in CASE I fell asleep, sat down and picked my laptop up. Looked up at the clock; 8:30am. I have to leave the house at 7:30 to reach my two connecting buses. OUCH. I begin work at 9, in a city twenty to thirty minutes away by car. ....yeah. I threw clothes on at lightning speed, brushed my teeth in ten seconds, bolted down the stairs, tried to push the dog outside for the toilet but he didn't want to go, grabbed my handbag (Mom had done my lunch the night before), the nearest pair of shoes and my birthday money to buy a ticket with, locked the door and headed for the train station. Mom...

Father's Day. Used to be a day when I'd go out and find a card and a present. Heh...dads. Men. They're so difficult to buy for. We'd usually buy him a tie. Socks. A shirt. Then this "Best Dad in the World" mug. Blue and white thick stripes with a "Forever Friends" bear face on the front with this blue bow tie. Then I grew older. I realised that my Mom had a lot of truth in what she said to my dad. I realised a lot of Dad's faults - and they weren't "general weak" faults. It grew harder to find a card for a man that wasn't...a real good daddy. But that showed caring and respect without eulogising him above the stars. Then everything exploded three years ago. I wasn't buying cards any more. I wasn't buying presents any more. Suddenly, I didn't even have a daddy any more. My flight lieutenant was the closest father figure I had and was very supportive during that time. But I had to handle Dad's birt...

"Mom, how do I cast off?" She came over and took the needle from me, the mass of knitted red wool hanging limply from one final strand. "You do this, and this." She knotted the thread through the loop and gave it back to me. "You can knot it again if you want." It was a weird feeling, standing there holding the work of two and a half months completed in my hands. I've been knitting this steadily, every spare moment I had where I wasn't doing anything else - or sometimes, when I could multitask, when I was doing something else. It's almost funny, really. That knitting has become a part of me. It's been knitted on trains, buses, car trips, street corners, in work, on work breaks, in castles, in church meetings, while watching films, babysitting, practising singing, etc. It's been washed by snow, rain, and my tears before being finished with machine washing. It's part of my life. I've knitted into it my sorrows, t...