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“That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:28 MSG 

When I was a little girl, my grandmother had a poem about the tapestry of our lives, how that God could see the beauty of the tapestry from the top while we saw only the knots and threads of the underside. Now I do extensive counted cross-stitch. In becoming a skilled needlewoman, I have learned that it is vital that the back look as good as the front for that is a true mark of excellence.

Yet, no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t look the same. Of course, I don’t frame the back of a piece of work for although there are no knots, there are the threads that are used to anchor the strand to the back of the design and they go in different directions or the colors mix with one another as they are fastened down by my stitches. They detract from the design itself, and regardless of how careful I am it never matches the beauty of the design on the front.

Our lives are like that. We just don’t understand what is happening up there, why God has done what He has, or allowed into our lives the things that have happened, or taken away that which we cannot understand, whether it is a loved one, a heart dream, or something material. There are moments in our lives when—if we are truly honest—we turn our eyes toward heaven and cry out, “Why?” The threads of our lives become knotted, tangled and frayed, and all that we see is utter confusion and no beauty at all in the pattern or even if there is a pattern.

Last weekend I was reminded of how God works, how wise He is, and how much He loves my children, my grandchildren, and me. My beloved uncle came to visit from Arizona and to meet his three great great nieces. This visit was very precious for several reasons: He is 87 and we thought we might not get to see him again; he is my only birth uncle and it was my last chance to obtain family history from him; and, he was instrumental in my very early life in protecting my sister and me. Because of our parent’s choices and behavior, my uncle gained temporary custody of us. We have known and loved this dear man all of our lives, although it had been about 10 years since we had last seen him.

The first night he simply sat beside me and held my hand as we talked. I still had questions to ask about what had happened and why. As he shared with me his heartache over relinquishing us to our father and then my father’s subsequent desertion of us, he wept. At that time, when he learned of my father’s betrayal, he became bitter against my father and never forgave him. But looking back, I could clearly see what God had done. It was a joy to share with my uncle how God had worked in my life, the lives of my children and half sister, and even my birth mother—his sister—all coming to a full knowledge of the salvation of Jesus Christ because of the “things” that had happened to me.

You see I was adopted at age 10 so I knew my birth family. That knowledge contributed greatly to my longing to understand the “whys.” God had taken me down a seemingly crooked path that seemed filled with things that weren’t good. I was deserted and taken from parents who didn’t love God, but that abandonment dropped me directly into the lives of my paternal grandparents who both loved and honored God deeply. It was in this environment that I was raised and nurtured to love God with all of my heart. My grandmother was the single greatest influence in my life—she loved God and she believed in me. She instilled in me that deep love for my Savior, the hunger for His Word, and the relentless pursuit of relationship with Him.

As my uncle shared stories of the family tree, one in particular caught my attention. One of my great grandfathers had been a circuit-riding preacher, a Quaker. Obviously, this man loved God and served Him. Had he read the promises of God’s faithfulness to his children’s children? Did he have a glimpse of the power of his choice to serve God and how it would influence the coming generations? Here I was, generations later, removed from an ungodly situation and placed into the lives of those who loved Him. God used this apparently evil situation in my life. This apparent “evil” situation had caused so much pain not only for me, but also for those in the family who loved me. The grief of grandparents, cousins, my uncle and aunt was still evident as my uncle spoke. For me, there had been a lifetime of deep pain as I dealt with feelings of rejection, loss, and desertion.

Subsequently I was adopted into a Godly family and through the years, I grew more in Him and began to have the slightest insight into why these “things” had happened. That burning hunger for Him never diminished, and it served to help me survive some seemingly insurmountable obstacles in my life. These seemingly “evil things” in my life had all seemed to be for no good at all and the actions of those who did not love Him and serve Him appeared on the underside of the tapestry to be ugly and useless in the final pattern. Those “things” had led me through relationships, heartache, and a struggle for growth and fulfillment only in Him.

But now there are glimpses of something closer to the finished product, and it becomes clearer that it was and has been for His glory. The deeper relationship with Him as I have sought to know and understand Him ever better was developed through all of these things, not merely because of them. The “whys” and “how comes” have been answered by the daily measures of His grace in my life. The tears have been dried, and the efforts to satisfy myself with anything but Him have been filled by the ever-growing knowledge of how deeply He loves me. He saw all of the “things” of my life and already knew the beauty of the finished tapestry that only He can see.

He’s still “stitching” on me, and I can’t see the final work. Sometimes He trims threads from my life. At other times, He untangles that which seems utterly knotted and beyond hope. Sometimes He cuts an entire row or portion, and I can only wonder at how this project will turn out. But I have complete faith that His finished work will result in a tapestry of great beauty solely for His enjoyment and framed by His Grace. 

Desirée Marrion is a member of Eastside Foursquare Church. She is a single mom, a grandmother, and an administrative assistant at a medical research facility. You may reach her at: marrion8955@yahoo.com

Copyright by 2004 Desiree Marrion