Ball of string

Banana has a newfound obsession with cardboard, and in her quest for more, while we were talking on the deck last night, she descended upon the ball of string (and cardboard inner) that we were using to tie up our pea plants in the garden yesterday. Of course she did not delicately unwind the string, and this is what we found:

So this afternoon I decided that I was not simply going to give up on this mangled, tangled mess of perfectly good string. I was going to unwind all of it and rewind it on an empty cardboard roll. Mr. A declared it impossible! It could never be done, and 5 hours from then I would be pulling my hair out and giving up!

Bah, I was not deterred!

So on the couch I sat with my empty cardboard roll and this mess of string. I found one end and attached it to the roll. The first few minutes went by relatively easily, but then I found myself facing a serious tangle. Then I saw the other end of the string and thought maybe it would be good to work at it from that end! But then I ran into a tangle with the other end and went back to the first end attached to the roll... Oh dear...

As I went about my untangling and rewinding, I was thinking that the knotted and seemingly all-for-not pile of string reminded me of how I feel our longing for a baby might look in picture form. At the outset, it looks hopeless. Then after some attention, things seem to get going in the right direction. Here comes a knot and progress slams to a halt. How can I get out of this bind? Ah-ha, somehow after some string-wiggling and patience, the untangling seems to be on the right track again. Smooth sailing ensues and, oh goodness, can I really be almost finished? I knew it could be done!

For whatever reason, God has placed some tangles in our string to our first baby. We are slowly but surely trying to have patience while working through the knots. He knows how we can untie the binds. We'll take a deep breath and keep the faith that it will be done.