tapestry in the making

Have you ever experienced the Lord weaving a tapestry before your eyes? Taking different threads, different textures and colors and connecting them?

This time, yes it has happened before, but this time He is doing it with words. With words on printed pages in a variety of books I am reading. With words spoken by a man I do not know, one older, further along on this journey yet travelling toward the same destination as I. And today, this morning, as I read a few more words, as I chew on the words I read when I woke, and reflect on those spoken yesterday the tapestry begins to come together. The design does not reveal itself fully, yet, but it is becoming beautiful. Not beauty like we know it, not glorious and amazing to our eye, instead a beauty only our heart can see and recognize.

I realize that sometimes we get from someone all they can offer. We hope for more, and yet that person barely has less. And they give us less, and leave us wanting. The wanting drives us somewhere. Hopefully, it drives us to the cross, that is where He wants it to drive us. To the cross once, and again, and again. Over and over. Realizing we wanted more, but that person did not have it to give. They never got the more either and they were left wanting, but never understanding there was more to offer.

So now, I look at those I offer to. And I see that as hard as it is, as much as it causes me to bleed tears and heartache– I do offer more. Not because I was offered more – not because I received the Truth, or Love, or Grace – but because when I was left wanting more I ran to the cross and those things were waiting for me there. I did not run the first time, not to the Cross. I did not even know about the cross. But over time He continued to woo me, allowing me to realize there was more to want and yearn for. And I did.

The colors blend together, the pain, the hurt, the forgiveness never offered. But among those threads are joy and love and good and truth and right. And if I look just at the pain and hurt I would miss the bigger picture. If I take just one thread and focus only on that one I would miss the beauty of it all.

He is revealing some of the glory of his work right before my very eyes with those who I have offered more. I have offered more not because I was given more, but because in my wanting I allowed HIM to give me more, enough to run over and into others.

I always feel a sense of wonder when after the storm the Lord silently appears to remind me of what I stand for, who I am, and most importantly WHOSE I am. After days of wondering why I do anything, if ANY of it matters, and if there was another way – HE shouts it to me through a stranger that “IT ALL MATTERS MORE THAN YOU KNOW.” He heals the hurting in my heart over past hurts, and he encourages me to stay the course and reminds me of WHO I do all of this for. And I am encouraged, buoyed, inspired. Resolved to go on, I will remain faithful through it all.