"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly..." — Colossians 3:16
At Abide Embroidery, every kit is designed with one goal in mind—to meditate on God's Word through embroidery. So how do we actually do that? Is it simply stitching a Bible verse? That's part of it. But there's so much more waiting for you in those quiet hours while you stitch.
From the moment you trace your pattern to your very last stitch, you'll spend somewhere between 6 and 10 hours on a single piece. 🤯 That is a lot of time working with your hands. The question I keep coming back to is this: what else could you be doing to edify your soul while you stitch?
My prayer is that you would redeem that time. Here are four ways to do it — listen, pray, meditate, and memorize.
1. Listen to God's Word
While your hands are busy, let your ears feast on Scripture.
There are wonderful apps that will read God's Word aloud to you, like the ESV Bible app and the Dwell Bible app!
And here's what amazes me about the hours we spend stitching:
In 4 hours, you could listen to the entire book of Genesis.
In 9 hours, you could listen to all four Gospels.
In 10 hours, you could listen to all 150 Psalms.
Amazing, isn't it? Obviously we won't sit down for 4-hour stitching sessions. But I bet we will at some point sit down for four, 1-hour sessions!
2. Pray
"Some people keep a prayer journal — my prayer journal is knitted into ridges and rows. I can look at sweaters, mittens, socks, dish cloths, and pot holders and remember what I prayed about during their birth." — Rosaria Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
When you've finished your listening, don't just stitch and tune out. Turn to prayer.
Maybe, like Rosaria, you pray for the person who will one day receive the work of your hands. Or maybe you lift up your family, your neighbor, your pastor, the global Church, the spread of the gospel to the nations. The list is endless.
3. Meditate
We've listened and we've prayed—now let's meditate.
Some of this you'll do away from your hoop, but much of it you can do as you sew. Slow down and ask:
Who was this written for?
Why was it written to them?
What does it mean?
How does it apply to the believer today?
Taking the time to truly know the verse hanging on your wall (or headed to a friend) gives the finished piece so much more meaning.
4. Memorize
What's your go-to method for memorizing Scripture? Some people sing the verse. Some add hand motions. Some write it out again and again. Others use the "first-letter method" or some other trick. Whatever the method, the goal is the same—hiding God's Word in our hearts so we can walk faithfully with Him (Psalm 119:11).
Here's the exciting part: this is exactly what we're going to do together in our 2026 Summer Stitch-Along.
From June 29 to July 31, we're stitching part of Psalm 118, "His steadfast love endures forever" and memorizing the entire psalm in just five weeks. All 29 verses. It sounds like a lot, but broken into a handful of verses each week, right alongside the verses you're already stitching, it is absolutely doable. Your hoop becomes your memory work, week by week, until the whole psalm is memorized!
