A darling great-niece just sent me this amazing poem by Corrie Ten Boom – the Dutch Christian who famously hid Jews from the Nazis, suffered for her “crimes” in the Ravensbruck concentration camp new Berlin, and lived to tell her story in The Hiding Place.
The Tapestry
My life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors,
He worketh steadily.
Oft times he weaveth sorrow,
and I, in foolish pride,
forget he sees the upper
and I the underside.
Not ‘til the loom is silent
and the shuttles cease to fly,
shall God unroll the canvas
and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
in the Weaver’s skillful hands,
as the threads of gold and silver
in the pattern He has planned.
I’ve often tried to express this thought, even using the tapestry analogy, but never as clearly as Corrie did in just 84 simple words.
Nor have I ever come close to explaining this idea as concisely as the apostle Paul did in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
In 1 Timothy 2:3b-4, Paul added that “God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And maybe that’s the larger point: The undersides of our tapestries may look dull or even hideous to us in this life, particularly as we approach its end – but the Lord is creating the precisely the image needed to bring each of us into His heavenly kingdom, safe and joy-filled forevermore.
The Tapestry
My life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors,
He worketh steadily.
Oft times he weaveth sorrow,
and I, in foolish pride,
forget he sees the upper
and I the underside.
Not ‘til the loom is silent
and the shuttles cease to fly,
shall God unroll the canvas
and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
in the Weaver’s skillful hands,
as the threads of gold and silver
in the pattern He has planned.
I’ve often tried to express this thought, even using the tapestry analogy, but never as clearly as Corrie did in just 84 simple words.
Nor have I ever come close to explaining this idea as concisely as the apostle Paul did in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
In 1 Timothy 2:3b-4, Paul added that “God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And maybe that’s the larger point: The undersides of our tapestries may look dull or even hideous to us in this life, particularly as we approach its end – but the Lord is creating the precisely the image needed to bring each of us into His heavenly kingdom, safe and joy-filled forevermore.
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