Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Hello from Colorado!
If you have ever tried to sew something, you probably know certain parts of a garment can test your patience. For me, buttonholes were one of those things.
I could sew a garment together and feel good about how it was turning out. Then came the buttonholes. Those little openings could make me question whether I really knew what I was doing.
I tried.
I practiced.
Sometimes the buttonhole didn’t turn out the way I wanted.
After a while, I made a decision. I stopped making buttonholes and started using zippers.
Now, that may sound like I gave up. I don’t see it that way.
I learned I didn’t have to keep struggling with one method just because that was how I originally planned to finish the garment. Another option existed, and the zipper did the job.
That got me thinking about life.
How often do we keep returning to the same solution because we have already decided that’s how something is supposed to work?
Sometimes we keep trying to repair a relationship the same way. We stay with a plan that isn’t working because we have already invested so much in it. We may even believe that changing direction means we have failed.
But changing direction isn’t always failure.
Sometimes it’s wisdom.
There have been times in my own life when I had to stop and admit that what I was doing wasn’t working. That isn’t always an easy thing to acknowledge. We can become attached to our plans because they are familiar, even when they aren’t taking us where we need to go.
Faith doesn’t mean I will always understand why something isn’t working. It does remind me that I don’t have to figure everything out by myself.
There may be another way.
There may be something I haven’t considered.
There may even be a door I haven’t noticed because I’ve been too busy trying to make the old one work.
I think that’s one of the beautiful things about walking with God. Sometimes the answer isn’t found in trying harder. Sometimes we need to listen, learn, and be willing to change our approach.
My buttonholes taught me something I didn’t expect to learn from sewing: just because one way doesn’t work for me doesn’t mean I have to abandon the whole garment.
Sometimes you need a zipper.
And sometimes, in life, you need to permit yourself to try another way.
Scripture for Today
“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:6 (NIV)*
I don’t read that as a promise that every path will be easy. I read it as an invitation to include God in the decisions we make, especially when the path we expected isn’t working out.
Maybe the stitch isn’t holding because it’s time to try something different.
I’ll take that lesson from a zipper.
See you tomorrow for another 15 minutes with God and a stitch from Heaven!
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