From my archives…

Another wonderful day the Lord has gifted us, the overcast sky so beautiful in its layers of whites and grays and purples and blues. The layering of the clouds looked like the peaks of a distant mountain range on the western prairies. I love watching the clouds stack up in colors and float silently away.

My yard was teeming with birds today. Their singing symphonies woke me this morning. My swing cushions were wet so I perched in my purple metal yard chair and watched the birds. Lots of male cardinals, so beautiful in their bright red plumage, their female partners just as beautiful in their muted isabelline colors. Bootsy, the neighborhood’s yard dog, came by to play tag with Penelope, bouncily walking over to the Bee Gees’ beat of Saturday Night Fever. She’s huge but plays sweet with Penelope.

My cousin sent me this quote — “I am pieces of all the places I have been, and all the people I have loved. I’ve been stitched together by song lyrics, book quotes, adventures, late night conversations, moonlight, and the smell of coffee,” Brooke Hampton. This quote made me think of our lives as a prodigious tapestry, a single piece of heavy fabric woven with designs of pictures and scenes, usually used as a wall hanging.

Our life tapestries are created from all our experiences, memories, and emotions — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Colorful threads shaping the designs, reminding us of the people we’ve loved and lost, reminding us of adventures and journeys through our lifetimes with family and friends. Our tapestries are interlaced with all the beautiful colors of the earth, strong threads knotted and occasionally broken.

When we turn the tapestry over, we see the knots and broken threads on the back, knitted and knotted together, made stronger with our threads of Christian faith. God helps with the weaving, threading into the tapestry special moments that live forever in our hearts. In times of great joy and in times of great sorrow our tapestries are being woven taut with the threads of love and grace sewn by God.

We’re all connected through the wondrous colors of thread that are sewn through our tapestries, intermingling with each other to create a beautiful work of art. Not every stitch is perfect but the broken threads give character to our tapestry. We need to cherish every spool of life’s thread that helps design our tapestry.

“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery.” — Colossians 2:2.

“Life is a great tapestry. The individual is only an insignificant thread in an immense and miraculous pattern.” — Albert Einstein