I learned to knit about ten years ago. I watched dozens of YouTube videos to master the basics of casting on, perfecting the basic garter stitch, purling, casting off, and binding off. I’ve never stepped much outside of basic patterns, and I’ve never knitted anything that wasn’t a square or rectangle.
Though I’m a very basic, novice knitter, I love spending a couple of months, especially in winter, working out a blanket or scarf for a friend or family member. By the time I bind off the remaining yarn at the end, dozens of yards of wool have traveled through my fingers. It’s a personal gift—one that takes time and patience. I love handing over the finished product, knowing that my hands have touched every stitch—thousands of them.
In Psalm 139, David likens God’s creation of human life to knitting. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret. Your eyes saw my unformed substance” (Ps. 139:13,15-16).
The visual here is stunning. Knitting is a very hands-on activity. Human life isn’t just sprouting up unbeknownst to God. He is intimately involved in the fashioning of every life. In Genesis, God spoke every portion of creation into being except for man. When it came to making man and woman, he “created them in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).
I don’t know the statistics on how many babies are conceived each day, but I can tell you that each burst of life involves as much intimate care from the Creator as the first two humans who walked in the garden of Eden. David paints a picture of an up-close God who is clearly involved in the secret knitting together of human life. It’s an intentional, raveling together of bone and joints, muscle and fascia, blood and organs, soul and spirit. When we were floating about in amniotic fluid in our mother’s womb, God saw our bodies and knew them well. He wasn’t just aware; He was involved. And it was good—very, very good. Fearfully and wonderfully good. Every stitch was good.
Psalm 139 illustrates more of this up-close God: he isn’t just observing our lives but has ordained our days. David wrote that “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16). The Lord knows every action, discerns every thought, sees every step and misstep. His plans for our lives weren’t random or quickly hatched at the last minute. He has ordained our days—planned them, set them in motion, known them intimately. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1 that God chose us in Him before the foundations of the world. The ordering of our days happened long before God spoke his “Let there be’s.” There’s comfort here for us: we can trust God with our days because He is sovereign over each one. Not a cell in our bodies has escaped His control, and not a day of our lives eludes His grasp. If you are in Christ, His plan for you to be so was written long before he began stitching you together in your mother’s womb.
I know that things go wrong. David knew, too. He buried children. He made sinful decisions with lifelong consequences. The thing about image-bearing is that we get to do it even in a state of brokenness. Though we might fear that the Lord has dropped a stitch or that we have marred the pattern, the truth is that every thread of our lives has traveled through His sovereign care. If our life includes suffering, we can know that the Lord will wring from it steadfastness and dependence upon him. If the intricate work in the womb results in a kind of life we didn’t expect or that our culture doesn’t value, the life is still more valuable than we can say for it still bears the image of a God who never drops a stitch, who never loses the pattern, who hems us in behind and before, who lays his hand upon us.
Sometimes I look at my life—the way the edges got frayed by chronic illness and the pattern looks messy because of sin. But I know that God is working something good in those who love Him, and that His hands have touched every stitch of my past, present, and future. And because Jesus has redeemed what I have torn, I can trust God with raveling together all things for the good of those who love him.
If the intricate work in the womb results in a kind of life we didn’t expect or that our culture doesn’t value, the life is still more valuable than we can say for it still bears the image of God. Share on XListen to this post:
Audio Player*Special thanks to my pastors and Sunday school class for helping me think through this post when we discussed imago Dei and Psalm 139 last month.
Photo by rocknwool on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
