Carole King’s album, TAPESTRY, from 1971 has been my all-time favourite all these years. That shows my age, I guess!
The song, Tapestry, came to mind just now while doing my morning devotional from Christine Caine’s book, “Unshakable”, where she reminds me of God’s faithfulness and encourages me to think back over my life, read my journals, to see how God has woven His inexplicable love, protection, grace and provision through life’s situations…good and bad.
The song goes…” My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold”
Carole King- Tapestry 1971
Amongst those blue and golden threads, there are threads of brown and black…events, disappointments, insecurities, uncertainties…but woven throughout, in between, around, are the threads of God in gold, holding it all together, bringing healing and restoration. This is my life’s story, my history, my uniqueness.
Scars on my life’s landscape are part of that story. Scars that bring empathy, compassion, experience for the benefit of others…things to be shared, not as entities in themselves but as part of the bigger landscape of my special life to bring connection, understanding, unity in a common story.
Its not until I step back and view the whole tapestry from a distance that I get any perspective. Still unfinished, I can see “behind” me and the supernatural hand of God guiding and leading me, sometimes following me to protect me from my past. (Psalm 139:5). But overall, His faithfulness throughout. “He will never leave us nor forsake us”.
Be encouraged! He’s brought us this far, every stitch lovingly placed and delicately woven into our story is His unfailing love for us. He has created a masterpiece in us all…we are fearfully and wonderfully made”. No two tapestries are alike.
So, as I look at my unfinished canvas, I can see such potential, even now, for a bright and colourful future. Will there be dark threads amongst that? Almost certainly!! And sometimes a whole block of one colour is woven before adding other hues. So where it seems nothing is changing…life is one boring colour…just know God has the overall view of our masterpiece in His mind’s eye and is waiting to weave into it, through people, places and provision, extraordinary experiences in those rich royal hues.
While we are waiting…and get comfortable with waiting!!….instead of trying to disentangle ourselves from the mess we’ve caused ourselves, allow God to continue to weave His golden thread of the love of Jesus and the knowledge of the Presence of the Master Creator of our tapestry, to exhibit His wondrous woven magic for all to see His glorious hand in our life’s story.
That tapestry is not for our benefit by the way. It is for Him to show His grace and glory to others.