The Big Picture

I’ve long thought of God as a master weaver, among other things, and each of us as individual threads in an incredibly complex and beautiful tapestry of His exclusive design. In my mind, our lives run through the pattern on different courses, intersecting at His direction, for His reasons. Only He can see the big picture He is creating. Our vision, and thus our understanding, is limited to a tiny area in the overall weaving – the people and circumstances in our lives that make up our reality at any given moment.

Now I’m sure I’m not the first person to come up with this allegory; in fact, I probably read it somewhere. But it’s stuck with me, and been helpful when I either don’t understand why something bad is happening to me, or even when I’m sure something good has happened just because God wanted to bless me. (Did you pick up on the theme, “It’s all about ME”…?) If the truth be told, God can use the things that happen in my life to not only teach or bless me, but in an infinite number of ways to touch the lives of the people around me and others I will never even know. It boggles the mind to consider how extensive His purposes are … reaching far beyond my existence.

Does that mean He doesn’t intend to bless me, or watch over every detail of my life? Not at all. It just means His thoughts and ways are incomprehensibly greater than mine – and I praise Him for that!


I was thinking of His tapestry earlier this week after I visited with two dear friends who lost a young family member in a tragic accident. I felt so inadequate, even as I was hugging them and telling them how sorry I was for what they were going through. My sweet friend Kathy said, “It’s so hard…” and I would have given anything to make it easier for her. But in the end, all I could was say, “I love you.” I didn’t even remind her that God loves her, and is catching all of her tears in His hands. I would have felt a little like one of Job’s “friends,” presumptuously reminding her of what she already knows.

It’s never easy losing someone you love, but it’s especially hard accepting that someone you think should still be here is gone. We grieve who they were, as well as who we imagine they would have become. Before I left the church I watched a DVD, a compilation of photos of this 26-year-old man’s short life. It blessed me, because I could tell the days he was given were filled with life, love, and laughter. But now he’s gone, just as surely as if he’d been cut neatly out of those pictures with a pair of sharp scissors or ripped out God’s tapestry, leaving a gaping hole in the hearts of the family and friends he left behind.

I don’t know the answer to the question, “WHY?” I only know we live in a fallen world, where horrible things happen. This much I do know, though: God is in the restoration business, and as surely as He restored John, he will restore his loved ones. They will always mourn him, but they can trust in this promise until they see him again in Heaven:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified … for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” ~ Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)