Bundles of Love

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers, we appreciate so much your continued interest, encouragement, and always needed prayers. The past few weeks have been more or less our “routine new normal.” We are enjoying our new living space and location, time with family and friends, frequent walks, and for Joy, a miracle she/we did not expect but has been thrilled to embrace, literally with both hands.

As I have shared previously, early on after our return home from Joy’s hospitalizations she miraculously picked up knitting and crocheting to our surprise and joy. This allowed her to rejoin the Knitting Grandma’s group in Maple Grove making hats for newborns at Maple Grove Hospital. This group was and is a wonderful encouragement for Joy and have been some of our most faithful followers, encouragers, and prayer supporters in her recovery. With so much lost to Joy in the accident, being able to knit and crochet again, to feel useful, and to have shared experiences with the Knitting Grandma’s group, was a boon to her health and healing.

With our move and Joy’s crafting seemingly focused on knitting and crocheting, I offered to drive Joy back to the Knitting Grandma’s in Maple Grove, but she felt a strong conviction to seek opportunities in our new community and surroundings. So, I began a search that led us to a wonderful discovery, “Bundles of Love,” just a short drive from our home. And, while the “bundles” are for babies, Joy has experienced bundles of love in this newly discovered opportunity. Bundles not only does hats, but a full range of newborn clothing, bibs, burp cloths, blankets, quilts, diaper bags, and more. In addition, they also participate in a holiday craft fair for fund raising which taps into more of Joy’s skills. So, at first, Joy planned to continue knitting and crocheting for Bundles by making hats, booties and sweaters for the babies and kitchen scrubbies and washcloths for the craft fair.

Yet, prior to the accident, Joy was not only a knitter and crocheter, she was also a master seamstress. She sewed many fabulous creations from intricate quilts to crafted bags, clutches, and more which she cherished giving to friends and family. But after her brain injury, she couldn’t imagine returning to sewing again. She would just stare with tears welling up in her eyes as she looked around the sewing center she had in our home. She couldn’t remember how to thread the needle on the sewing machines or how to use any of the settings or attachments. As we prepared for our move, she decided she would give away 90 percent of her sewing equipment and materials, retaining one sewing machine and a few basics. These were boxed up and stored after the move with no plans for imminent use.

Still, I encouraged Joy to consider sewing options, which at first just felt too overwhelming to consider. But as Joy became more acquainted with the organization and after I helped clarify for her what I saw as opportunities for simple sewing projects at home, she spent some extended time with individuals at Bundles looking at sewing options, she reluctantly let me set up her machine on a card table as we worked together on figuring that contraption out. Well, once again we were praising God, because just as with her knitting, as her fingers started touching the familiar tools, her jumbled mind was able to recall the basics, and she was off and running.

After her first quilt on the card table, she let me talk her into a compact sewing table that fit neatly in our den and now, once again, she has a dedicated sewing nook and literally beams each time she sits down at the machine. We were both moved to tears as she shared with me how much sewing meant to her having started at 8 years of age and in a home where money was tight often sewed her own school clothes as a young girl.

We are so thankful to have discovered Bundles of Love and if that wasn’t enough, God further blessed Joy when she attended their monthly knitting/crochet group only to discover that a former work associate from her many years at Unity Hospital was there and had heard of Joy’s accident and recovery, both were overjoyed to see each other.

While this has proved to be a wonderful blessing for Joy, it impresses me all the more of her courage and determination. Given her aphasia, it is scary and hard when meeting new people and re-trying things again that were lost to the accident. What if the right words won’t come, what if she can’t understand what she’s hearing, what if she says the wrong thing, how will people respond, can she learn again to do what had been familiar. But Joy’s call to be useful and a blessing to others has overshadowed the fears and brought her real joy and satisfaction as an outcome.

In her book, “Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope,” author Joan Chittister shares the following, that in my humble opinion, perfectly characterizes my wonderful Joy:

“There is no one who does not have to choose sometime, someway, between giving up or growing stronger as they go along. And yet if we give up in the midst of struggle, we never find out what the struggle would have given us in the end. If we decide to endure it to the end, we come out of it changed by the doing of it. It is a risk of mammoth proportions… Indeed, I have seen person after person broken by the breaking open of life’s great fissures. And I have also seen them survive. I have learned through them that all struggle is not destructive. I have come to understand from them that it is not struggle that defeats us, it is our failure to struggle that depletes the human spirit.”

For those of you who might be interested more information on Bundles of Love and their multiple locations, the website is: https://www.bundlesoflove.org

Till next time please continue your thoughts and prayers for us as we seek to discover all that God has for us on this adventure through the unknown, your faithful company encourages our hearts and buoys our spirits. Thank you so very much!