Walk down any street in Antigua, Guatemala and you will see beautiful fabrics. These intricate pieces have detailed designs, vibrant colors, and exquisite beauty. The women create, wear, and sell this cloth. Each design represents a different village and culture. Two different types of looms help create these fabrics. Others, the women stitch by hand. Any given piece takes labor-intensive weeks to months to create. The Guatemalan women spend so much time, intricately and specifically designing each piece, weaving in history, beauty, and love.
It’s amazing to me how God works this way. Look at your life… Really look at it… And you will see that God is a weaver, as well. He is weaving your life, His story, into a beautiful tapestry or table runner or curtain or whatever He desires. There will be times when the picture is unclear. There may be times when you feel He is just tying you up in knots. You may not like how this color sits next to another. But just wait, because the final garment will be glorious!
Being on the race, I have gotten to see God weave in some amazing ways. At training camp, he gave one (maybe more, but specifically one) immense freedom. Through a leader, He told that person that He was going to use the freedom gained to help break others chains. He also put freedom and vulnerability on the heart of squad mentor, who began planning our first debrief soon after. Fast forward to month one in Honduras, during which we had 3 Thursday night worship sessions. Each session was planned by a different group, at a different time, completely separately. Week one topic: Trust. Week two topic: Vulnerability. Week three: sharing your struggles and gaining Freedom. That original squadmate, along with another, shared their testimonies that night. Several more of us shared a cardboard testimony (if you don’t know what these are, YouTube some!). This opened the door to allow others to share. However, God said it wasn’t time. It was just another stitch needed in the tapestry.
Now it is debrief, the one planned right after training camp, and the topic: Be Vulnerable. Share your struggles. Gain freedom.
How cool is God?! And He does this ALL THE TIME! You just have to look for it! The story of how I came to share my struggle at debrief is just as intricate, weaving together words and prayers of many others. Even this blog was woven together over days, through multiple discussions. I had even titled it and started writing it and later in the week had a conversation with two others in which they talked about how God is the master weaver, bringing things together.
Look for His hand in the patterns of Your life. The evidence of His weaving is there. I cannot wait to see the final product when He pulls it from the loom, complete and perfect in Him!
