Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.

Henri Nouwen

The Orthodox liturgical new year is celebrated on September 1st, and I love the way the seasons of the Church help us reflect on the seasons in our lives. There’s something about new beginnings that makes me pause and reflect, and as we near our hopeful move-in date, I’ve been contemplating the past year and all the many changes that came with it. Our move was only a bit more than a month away from the liturgical new year, and it really ushered in a new season in our lives. Looking back, I can see God’s provision for us in so many ways. Most of all, I am grateful for the ways He helped me grow this past year.

In early 2021, I remember doing dishes and looking at the icon of Christ hanging over my pots of herbs, and realizing He was telling me it was time to grow our family. It wasn’t a large, powerful revelation with visions or strong emotions. Just a gentle realization and a sense of peace about it, even in the face of all the unknowns.

Next month, we discovered we were expecting. That sense of peace remained even as my world was turned on its head. I adored my job as associate dean and history teacher, and thought I would never leave. Suddenly, we were signing a purchase on a prefab home, leaving our little house by the sea, moving back to my childhood property, and adding to the small homestead my parents and grandparents had already started.

The months that followed were incredibly difficult. Pregnancy nausea was intense and lasted for more than 28 weeks. We lost one of our closest family friends to cancer. Our house hit delay after delay due to COVID and supply chain issues, pushing our timeline further and further. My parents and I learned to co-exist as a jumbled household as we moved into the small studio in the back of their garage and shared their kitchen (and often their living room).

And under it all was this aching loss of identity. My body was changing to grow my son, and felt alien to me. I was back in my childhood home after being married and independent for two years. I was unmoored from a full-time job for the first time since high school.

And yet, in the midst of all the chaos there was peace — that same peace I had felt while doing the dishes and looking at the icon of Christ. I knew we were where He wanted us, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there. So, fighting through nausea and fatigue and chronic pain exacerbated by pregnancy, I decided to pick up knitting as a way to focus on that peace.

The first time I made a pair of socks, I swore I would never do it again. I don’t want to admit how long it took me to slowly and clumsily piece together a single sock, riddled with mistakes. Heavily pregnant, I gave up halfway through the second and stuffed it away in a project bag. I didn’t pull it out again until postpartum (and only because because my pride didn’t let me stop so close to the end). I finished my first pair of socks bleary-eyed and bleeding, holding my sleeping baby through his naps.

Months passed, and I grew into motherhood the same way my son grew: subtle changes, some painful growth; jerky and uncertain movements. Together we grew — but while I loved my son more than my own life, I still struggled with my new vocation of motherhood.

And I still struggled to see why anyone would want to knit socks. Why would anyone dedicate so much time and effort to such a small and mundane object? When you knit a sock, you pour a sweater’s worth of time and stitches into something that goes on feet and hardly anyone ever sees. And you do it twice.

Then, when told Jake I wanted to knit him something and asked what he would like me to make, he answered innocently: Socks. This is how you know I love the man. I cast on a pair of socks. I had another project on my needles too — a gorgeous slipover vest that often took precedence. Sock progress (sockgress) crawled.

Then a sleep regression hit, along with teething. Michael would only nap in my arms, and knitting a large and cumbersome object while holding a sleeping baby isn’t a great idea. So it was back to the socks. And as the heel formed beneath my needles, I realized my struggle with motherhood and my struggle with socks weren’t that different.

I had been used to all my work being external: checklists and accomplishments where everyone could see them. They were like knitting sweaters: beautiful, visible, and easily noticeable and praised. Now I was doing internal work: in myself, in my family; in my son. That work was like knitting socks: beautiful, invisible, not really remarkable or noticeable by anyone except God and my family.

Both types — the external work and internal work — are beautiful and worthy. In this season of my life, my vocation is mostly internal. And now, watching my husband and son play together in their matching socks is a reminder that internal work can be just as rewarding — perhaps even more so.

I continue to find knitting as a source of peace in the midst of life’s storms. I look at the work on my needles (especially socks) as a physical representation of the quiet work set before me. I lean into it, this internal-yet-others-focused vocation of wife and mother and writer and homesteader.

2022 has been difficult, but I see this as a chance to look towards new beginnings, and God-willing, an autumn full of healing and rejuvenation. And I look forward to whatever growth this next liturgical year brings. As my one of favorite prayers, the Akathist of Thanksgiving says, “Glory to God for all things”.