“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle…”
Job 7:6
My precious mom loved to do needlepoint. As a child, I can still see her, after all of her housework was completed, sitting down in her favorite chair with a small needle in hand, a large piece of stiffly woven material on her lap, searching through lots of beautifully colored yarns until she found just the right one to start pulling through the small holes. In those days she would complete very large pieces with lovely designs on them; large enough to cover antique chairs, she even completed a large work for my piano bench. In later years, she finished lovely needlepoint designs to be framed; many of which hang in my home today. Several years ago, she and I counted up the number of needle works she had done. The total came to well over one hundred. Within the last decade, as she progressed toward the age of ninety, her eyesight became compromised by macular degeneration and her “needlepoint fingers” became permanently bent from holding the needles and materials so tightly, so she was unable to continue her handiwork. Nevertheless, she always kept one unfinished project by her chair, always saying, “I could work on it if I wanted to, I just don’t want to right now.”
This past weekend, I was going through some of her things, a task that seems to always make me sad and causes me to miss her so much. In the process, I came across that unfinished, halfway-completed, needlepoint. The top side was a beautiful blue background with fresh spring flowers in the middle. As the lines progressed I could clearly see how her stitches became less than perfect. I could see how she had missed some of the little squares, sometimes even pulling the thread line over two or three squares. It was clear that she had, at some point, became frustrated and just quit.
As I held the piece of handiwork, I began to think of the analogy between a man-made tapestry and God’s Tapestry of our lives. Maybe you have heard it before. As you look at a tapestry from the bottom side often all you can see are the knots, the left-over tails of thread, the bumps and lumps. But, turn the tapestry over and look down onto the top side and you see how all the beautiful colors and coordinated stitches fit together for the purpose of a lovely picture. Backside…a knotted, twisted, and tangled mess! Topside…a magnificently colored, beautiful picture!
So, through some tears, I quietly thanked God for the reminder that Mom had left for me. Somehow she was telling me, “It will all be okay. The tears, twists and tangles of the earthly life are all for a Purpose, Sue. God is creating an Eternal Picture, and you and I and Jesus will get to look at it together one day!”
God is working His purpose out
as years flow into years,
Sue
Sue trusted and believed in Jesus Christ as her Savior and Lord at the age of twelve. She became actively involved in the music ministry of her home church as a sophomore in high school. She is a native of Cumberland, Maryland.