THE CHILDREN’S STORY CORNER:

GOD’S TAPESTRIES

Do you know what a tapestry is? A tapestry is a wall hanging or carpet with a beautiful design. The weaver, working on a tapestry, sits behind a loom. He cannot see from where he sits what the tapestry looks like for he works from a pattern, weaving threads of many colors - some bright and others dark - and they seem like they would not add any beauty to the pattern at all!

This is a good picture of our lives - some days are bright with laughter, friends, and joy, and others dark with sickness or things that make us sad. On such days, we wonder - why doesn’t the Lord take these dark days away and just give us all sunshine; why is the tapestry not all bright colors with no dark ones? But if the tapestry were all bright colors, the beauty would not show up as when contrasted with the dark colors.

When there is a rainy day, and all seems gray and gloomy but then the next day there is sunshine and blue skies. Doesn’t it seem brighter because of yesterday’s rain? Life is made of many “contrasts” or opposites. There is a saying: “All sunshine makes a desert!” Even as flowers need both sunshine and rain, so do we! In having both bright and dark days we grow learning to be patient. We even appreciate our friends and the sunny days more. It is in hard times we learn the many lessons of life and appreciating more the happy times. Think back to a time you were sick and wished it would end. When it did, weren’t you glad and thankful that you felt well again? Our loving God gives us what we need to grow well.

Like the weaver sitting behind his tapestry, we often can’t see how the dark ‘threads’ in our life can be good. But looking back we can see we have grown. So let’s take both the dark times and the bright times with faith that our Heavenly Father is choosing for us what is best; and then one day we will look back on our life and see a lovely tapestry!

Your Aunt Vivien

“My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me,

I cannot choose the colors He works so steadily.

Sometimes He weaves in sorrow, and I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper and I, the underside.

Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

Shall God unroll the tapestry and explain the reason why,

The dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful Hand

As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.”

Grant Colfax Tuller