What is your life story? Wait; I will get us a cup of tea. Would you rather have coffee?
That would be fun if I could make our visit happen. I wish I could learn how you walked through your dark valleys or climbed to the top of life's mountains. I would like to hear how the stories of others intersected with your life story.
My husband, Wes, has been working on writing his life story for our family. He realized that he not only needs to tell his story, but he also needs to include the stories of the other people in his life. His adoptive mom fell and hit her head on a rock when she was in her twenties; her brain damage would affect Wes's childhood.
His dad's story of being an only child, attending a military boarding school for high school and fighting in the South Pacific's worst battles as a Marine in World War II added to Wes's story. (Wes was born in 1947.) Another family's poverty in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina radically affected how he grew up as an only child in Wyoming instead of in the Appalachian Mountains with siblings and many aunts and uncles and cousins. Our lives are like a kaleidoscope; one slight move completely changes the pattern.
Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch survivor of the Nazi concentration camp in Ravensbruck, shared a message about God's tapestry. She showed the back of her needlework with its knots and multi-colored threads crisscrossing the fabric with no particular pattern. She then turned it over to reveal a beautiful scene; every stitch where it needed to be.
God called Corrie to share the truth that "there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." She took that message and the gospel to over 60 countries. Her story is told in her book and in the movie The Hiding Place.
I will turn 78 this year, and I can now see God's handiwork in my life. Paul told the Romans "that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). He went on to say that our heavenly Father's purpose is to conform us into the image of His Son.
When I first wrote this article, I had all kinds of ideas about how one good thing happened because of a painful situation, but then I realized that God could have made anything happen without other happenings. He doesn't program difficult things into our lives so that He can give us good things, so I took a second look at how things work out for our good. The very best thing that can happen-no matter what the circumstances-is that we will come close to our Lord. That relationship will continue forever!
I don't know what awaits us in 2025, but I know that God is faithful to keep His promise to us-even when things look knotted with loose strands of life hanging here and there. I now know beyond a shadow of doubt that God loves us and invites us to be a part of His Kingdom, and His kingdom goes on forever. We may need to unfold the tapestry to its full length to see the picture, but it is an unbelievably awesome picture!
Sue Carlisle grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. An enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, her passion is to encourage people to look at creation and see our awesome Creator.
Sue is author of Walking with
the Creator Along the Narrow
Road (see page 19). She and
her husband, Wes, now live
in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
