An Inkling
My art education has been remedial. I had little instruction as a youngster, and thus I am trying to fill in those gaps as an adult. One art genre that has fascinated me is the tapestry. Thousands of threads are woven to tell a story. They may show a single scene, like Raphael’s picture of the miraculous catch of fish. Or they may tell a longer story. For example, the Prestopans Tapestry takes 104 meters to tell the story of the 1745 Battle of Prestopans!
In a tapestry, no one thread tells the tale. But all the threads together can portray an elaborate scene, or recount a whole history.
You are a tapestry artist. All but a few of us shy away from the title “artist,” but it’s true. You are continually weaving threads that make up the tapestry of your life. Particular threads may not seem of much import, say for example the way you do your meals, converse on the phone, or use your time in the evening. But they become part of the larger portrayal of something quite grand – your life. Everything gets woven in, both your best and worst. And thankfully, God weaves his gracious and glorious threads into our tapestries too.
It’s well to step back sometimes and ask, “What tale is my tapestry telling?” I was put to thinking about this most recently when Sarah broke her ankle a week ago at the church picnic. We heard a couple of days later that three little boys, Mikey, Sam, and James, had gone into one of the Sunday School rooms and prayed for her while we awaited the ambulance. No one told them to. They just did it. How did they know to do that?
At this point in their lives, their tapestries are still very much interwoven with those of their parents. Prayer must be woven right into the scenes of their everyday family life. Thus it seemed natural to the boys to pray in an emergency. Now, even at a young age, they are weaving such threads into their own tapestries – to the glory of God!
How’s that for a masterpiece?!
Blessings,
Keith
