dark thread and gold thread...

This is something I have been thinking about the last couple days.

Have you ever seen a tapestry? Have you ever seen the back of one? The back side of a tapestry is less obvious than the front side. You can kind of see the picture but the colors are muted and it's not as clear. There might be some snags in the threading and things might look a little confusing. But if you turn the tapestry over and step back and take a look at the big picture you can see how each individual thread contributes to the whole of the image. There may be some dark threads and some gold threads woven in there too. Each is equally as important. The gold threads are important because they help paint the beautiful picture. The dark ones are just as important because without them the gold threads wouldn't mean as much. They wouldn't be as bright and we might fail to see just how the dark ones contribute and contrast with the gold ones. Without them the gold ones wouldn't be gold. They would be just another thread. And together all these threads tell a story. A beautiful, colorful, poignant story - full of dark threads and gold threads.

Life is a lot like a tapestry. On the back side, underneath the surface, things might look kind of confusing. There might be some snags in the weave. At any given moment I might not be able to see the whole picture, what exactly God is doing in my life, what exactly I am here for. The image might be a little unclear. But if I step outside myself and look at the sum of the picture, I will see something quite different. The story I weave is quite magnificent. There are dark threads - the moments when I am desperate and discouraged, seeking and thirsty. There are golden moments - those breathtaking, life-giving moments when the Son shines down on me and I am resplendent with God's grace and love and blessings. There are other colorful threads - the moments in the in-between. The dark threads are what challenge me to be always growing and striving for more golden moments. The golden moments are what get me through the darker ones. And the colorful moments are when I do the growing and living and making up the larger part of my story. All these threads - or moments - together make up a story. My story. Beautiful. Colorful. Poignant. The sum of the threads together is far greater, far more beautiful than the individual threads.

The best part of this tapestry is that God is my weaver. He had my tapestry designed in his heart long before he started weaving it. He had it mapped out. He knows exactly what he is doing and where each thread should go, where it will be most effective and why. He knows what the end result will be, what the tapestry will look like when this side of my life is over. He knows every detail of my past story and every detail of my future story. And he knows that while I might make mistakes and put a snag in the weave, he prepares for it ahead of time and still manages to make the story of my life beautiful. Perfectly flawed!