WOVEN: The First Thread
Have you ever stood so close to something that you couldn’t really see it?
Imagine walking up to a quilt until your face is only a few inches away. You might see a purple square, a seam, a few stitches, maybe even a thread that looks out of place. But from that close, you could never understand the whole thing. You would have to back up before the pattern began to emerge.
I wonder how often we experience our own lives that way.
We spend so much time standing incredibly close to our stories. We see the season we are in right now. The decision we have to make. The thing that didn’t go according to plan. The ordinary days when nothing particularly important seems to be happening. And sometimes we look at those individual pieces and wonder, What is this supposed to become?
Psalm 139 offers us a different perspective.
David writes, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
We hear those words often, but David’s wonder isn’t simply, Look at me. His wonder is, Look at God.
Look at how carefully God creates. Look at how completely God knows. Look at how faithfully God remains.
David could look backward over a life filled with unexpected turns and recognize something he could not always see while he was living it. Before David was a king, he was a kid watching sheep. Before anyone knew his name, God knew him. Before David could see where his story was going, God was already holding the thread.
And that thread wasn’t created without purpose.
Ephesians 2:10 calls us God’s “masterpiece,” created in Christ Jesus for good works. Not because there is one secret plan we have to discover or one perfect path we have to follow without making a wrong turn. Rather, God has woven gifts, passions, experiences, and possibilities into us that we carry into the ordinary places of our lives. We discover them as we love, serve, create, forgive, welcome, learn, and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us.
Maybe that is where faith begins—not with seeing the whole picture or figuring out exactly what comes next, but with remembering whose hands are holding the thread.
Our stories are still taking shape. God is still creating, still surprising us, still bringing out colors we may not have even known were there.
We don’t have to see the finished picture today.
We can simply bring the thread that is ours, place it into the hands of the One who has held it from the beginning, and trust that there is still beauty unfolding.
