Greetings!
I never cease to be amazed at the number and variety of fascinating crafts that creative people undertake these days. There seems to be no end to the new creative ideas that often are inspired by the vast array of new materials that are available. Or even the intricate artistries from the olden days when “necessity was the mother of invention.”
When I was a very little girl, I remember watching my Grandmother making her patchwork quilts out of pieces cut from worn aprons and cotton dresses, or piecing together scraps of finer fabrics to make her beautiful silky cushion covers. One of my fondest memories is that of watching her hooking her famous rugs. No, she didn’t use the latest shrink-proof synthetic yarns on special rug material with pre-printed patterns. Her base was a burlap potato sack, washed and stretched on a home-made frame. Her materials were strips of worn-out woolen underwear that she had dyed in the colors she needed.
Early in the last century, Grandma and Grandpa had left their beloved home in the East to come West to homestead with three of their sons – my Dad being one of them. It was a hard life for Grandma, especially after Grandpa’s sudden death from coal gas. But her simple faith in God carried her through to her 84th year. One of her most cherished projects was a rug which she hooked depicting her old home and sturdy rock-foundation barn that she had left behind in Ontario. Copying a snap-shot, my cousin drew the design on the burlap sack, and Grandma carefully and patiently hooked each stitch with the underwear strips which she had prepared. I have that precious rug in my possession, and I plan to someday restore it and frame it for posterity.
Weaving is one of the very ancient crafts that is still done today. Of course, modern (more or less) technology has given us machines to weave much finer and more intricate fabrics. But hand-woven is very special, even today.
Our God has been pictured to us as a many-talented Craftsman – from Goldsmith to Potter, from Tuner to Artist. After all, it is He Who gives us “wisdom, understanding and knowledge in all manner of workmanship to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, the sculpting of marble and carving of wood…to engrave, and embroider and weave.” (Exodus 35:30-35)
In this letter we consider Him as a Weaver:-
Our lives are but intricate weavings that God and we prepare; each life becomes a fabric planned and fashioned in His care. Sometimes a strand of sorrow is included in His plan and, though it’s difficult for us, we still must understand it’s He Who fills the shuttle with the threads of colors rare, and so we’ll leave it all with Him and trust His loving care. When gray threads mar life’s pattern and seem so out of line, we trust the Master Weaver Who planned the whole design. The pattern may seem intricate and hard to understand, but we trust the Master Weaver with His steady guiding hand, for He can view the pattern upon the upper side, while we can see it only on this, the underside.
Our lives are a woven fabric; the pattern and web are wrought by the dark threads and the golden that into the loom are shot. You cannot judge God’s purpose by the thrust of a single thread; what you may think dark, mysterious, may be light and bright instead. For He holds in mind a pattern as fair as His love is strong, which grows each day in the weaving; not a single thread goes wrong. No warp in His hands shall tangle, no slumber His eyelids close. We can rest in His purposeful plan, in His will find sweet repose.
Not ’til the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly will God unroll the canvas, and explain the reason why the dark threads were as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He had planned. Our tangled and broken efforts to walk in His kind commands will give life an added luster restored by His loving hands.
So trust in the Weaver’s wisdom, His love and unfailing care, and the fabric of life, completed, will some day be wondrous fair.
(Adapted from three similar poems by unknown authors)
“Now the God of all HOPE fill you with all Joy and Peace in the believing, that you may abound in HOPE, through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)
In Agape, Eulene
