Neckties. I love to buy them for the King — bright and colorful. He used to chastise me about cost, color and having more than a few until he began to get compliments. The big turning point was when bored staff and lobbyists in his committee meeting took a poll on who had the best tie, and he won! Check out the picture of him this morning, busy doing the people's business. It's one of his new Jerry Garcia's. Wow!

There was, however, a time I never wanted to see another tie again. For a few years in the late 70’s and early 80's I handled thousands, or maybe even tens of thousands of ties. They took over our basement and my life. My entrepreneurial sister and brother-in-law capitalized on the change in style from 4-or-more-inch wide ties to much narrower 3-inch ones. They established a mail order business, advertising in The Wall Street Journal, etc., for men to request a special bag to mail in their favorite ties (special price for 6) to be narrowed. Business took off like a rocket; and I was a player, making $1 a tie to cut them open, pare them down, and resew them by the package.

In efficient assembly line fashion (as is my wont after reading Cheaper by the Dozen years earlier — the book that has influence my life second only to The Bible) I’d park myself at the ironing board, snip open, iron out, measure, cut, refold and gently press them, piling each order on its bag on a TV tray, crisscrossing to keep them separate. Then I’d move the whole pile to a comfy chair and stitch them back up.

My little kids romped around my legs, but it all worked. Until the day a preschool someone tipped over the tray loaded with a pile of ready-to-be-sewn ties and mixed them all up. I cried hysterically for hours. In the end, using my practiced eye from hundreds of packages in the past, I put what I thought went together in each package and sent them back. No one ever complained. Either men don’t know what ties they have (which I think is likely) or they liked the new ones better.

This candid shot pretty much says it all. One day my precious little daughter, seated at my feet, passed me a note, “Mom, please put down the ties and let me sit on your lap.” I patted her head and assured her that I was right there, but I had to keep sewing. Every time I remember that, tears arise; and oh, what I’d give to go back to that day and hold her for hours!

But as always, God is good. Times were tough economically; those ties helped get us through, and our daughter has grown into an amazing woman.

And my sad little story with the happy ending is nothing compared to the day when another trembling sewer showed up at my sister’s sheepishly offering bags of ties her angry, abusive husband had cut into pieces!

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you, casting the whole of your care — all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all — on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. I Peter 5:6-7