Saturday, December 22, 2018

God's Stitchery

I've heard a few different people say it in a few different ways so, please don't think it's my genius as a wordsmith: God is making an amazing tapestry, with our lives as threads, (or whole tapestries depending on whom you ask) and often it looks "messy" underneath - we won't see the beauty until we leave this world and see it from above.

I think I agree with most of that but perhaps it would be more encouraging, as it has been for me, if we look for the "stitches" that happen in our lives. Today, for instance...

Twenty-one years ago, we buried my dad. It wasn't a welcome end to a lingering illness. It was a horrible accident, 6 days after my 29th birthday and 6 days before Christmas. It was a truly devastating tragedy. To say God allowed my life to be pierced that day in order to begin the stitch would be an appropriate analogy. Left behind was a most painful wound.

For eleven years the wound remained. The hole where my dad was ripped from us. Advent and Christmas were trials, even with our new marriage and our two young children. It would sneak up on me when I least expected it.

I would never liken myself to Our Lady in anything but, perhaps, I could join in with a friend of one of the Twelve Apostles, just following Good Friday. God is good so how can this be it? How can this be the end? Why did this happen and where are we to go from here? I can empathize with those early Christians in their waiting those long days. It can be a dark time.

I did wait, though, albeit not always patiently. I tried to continue to attend Mass and receive the Sacraments. I am so grateful for this grace because one particular reconciliation with one particular priest is why I am where I am today in my faith. He spoke about anger and questioning but also waiting and trusting and not giving up. So, even in my wretched pain and sorrow, I did not give up.

On the 11th anniversary of that day at my dad's graveside, God pulled the thread and completed the stitch. We delivered our third child, a boy, who would carry my dad's name. The thread that had first pierced me so many years before; the trust that allowed me to hang on during the dark times; the grace that allowed me to walk blindly...allowed me, with my dear husband, to see God's handiwork. His finished stitch was so much more beautiful than I could have imagined. So much more good than I could have thought would come from such tragedy.

We were speaking to a priest the other night and he was mentioning the current crisis in the Church and how it was similar to 500 years ago. Following such a desperate crisis came the Counter-Reformation and an explosion of so many great Saints, so many people who trusted and followed and lived according to God's plan for them. How sad, he said, for the people who gave up the faith, just before -  how much they gave up! So, if you're going through a dark time...if the evils of the world (in or out of the Church) weigh on you...keep walking forward, listening to God's word and plan for you and don't turn from Him, even when the dark and silence are overwhelming. Wait to see how He finishes the stitches in your life. This is going to be one incredible tapestry.

We are blessed.

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