The Dropped Stitch by Mintie E. Bodwell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 10, 1915

The Dropped Stitch

By Mintie E. Bodwell

MINTIE E. BODWELL

ISABELLA was knitting a pair of bedroom shoes, of beautiful old-rose pink and gray wool. Instead of beginning them at the top, stocking fashion, she began at the bottom, and worked upward. She thought them very pretty, and was taking great pains to have them, as she expressed it, flawless.

In one round of stitches she noticed what seemed to be a “slack stitch.” “I believe I can take that fullness up in a new stitch, this round, and next time I shall knit it in with one of the others, and it will never show,” she said.

Round after round of the beautiful pink and gray alternated, and she was fast narrowing off, when, spying what appeared to be a tiny opening near the seam on the foot, she examined closely and discovered a dropped stitch, that was slowly but surely making its way to the very end of her work.

This would mar the appearance of the shoe and spoil its usefulness. With a crochet hook she hastily began picking up the lost stitches; for with every round the stitch went down, another stitch was lost.

The little hole where she began picking up the lost stitch was quite evident, also a few stitches in line immediately above it were easily regained; but in order perfectly to rectify the mistake made, the first lost stitch must pass, thread by thread, round by round, from the tiny hole where it had dropped, to the very top, where the rest of the stitches were ranged in even rows upon the shining needles.

As she worked toward the top, she found that the worsted had closed in from either side, and about covered the track of the dropped stitch. Especially difficult to pass was the place where she had tried to cover up the defect. But with patience and care she succeeded in bringing the dropped stitch into line with the rest. In the process of narrowing, however, it had not been counted in, and so in order to avoid a misfit, it had to be taken in with another stitch, and so lost its identity.

In the web of our lives how often by an unkind speech or a thoughtless act we drop a stitch. In various ways, by being extra thoughtful or kind, we seek to atone for the past. We may seem to have reformed, and others may be satisfied, but the dropped stitch is there, and going deeper and deeper into our souls. The faculties that might have been developed, and used to the glory of God, are never fully restored, though we still hold a place among his children.

This is the day of God’s preparation. Every talent, every faculty, is needed to be used in giving the loud cry of the third angel’s message. Let us begin where we find our mistakes, and by God’s Spirit and power pick up the dropped stitches.