A Tapestry

This past week I walked with a friend through heartache in her relationship with her mother, I shared with a friend her pain in discovering that her child had decided to turn his back on God’s word and I received a text from a young mother, pregnant with number three, whose grandmother she was caring for, fell, and was in the hospital. I listened as a friend expressed her weariness and exhaustion with the busyness of life, and just last night, I received a text from my sister that her youngest daughter had miscarried. Today I spent time with a young woman whose baby girl was born prematurely and has been diagnosed with numerous health issues that could ultimately end in a premature death. I think of each of these, even my own circumstances with Mark’s diagnosis, in light of those profound words, “Our quality of life is determined by our submission to God’s will.”I resisted and struggled with submission – surrender- for the first four years after Mark’s diagnosis. When I’ve heard people speak on the topic of surrender and they have glibly said, “Just surrender to whatever it is that God is allowing in your life.”

 I’ve wondered if they had ever truly been in a position of surrendering totally and completely to God’s will in that their husband would never walk again, never work again, never speak clearly, or ever run and play with his grandchildren. Had they ever experienced a broken heart over a wayward child? Had they ever desired to be unconditionally loved by a parent? Had they ever lived with the pain of knowing that at any moment their newborn’s heart might stop pumping life-giving blood? Surrender to whatever! Did they truly understand how hard complete and total submission-surrender- to God’s will is?In order to submit to God’s will, you must first, surrender. I had to come to that painful, yet freeing, place of surrender to what God was allowing in our lives. I had to say, “God, I don’t understand, but I surrender and I am asking You to work Your good and perfect will in and through these circumstances. I cannot see it, so give me spirit eyes and a desire to submit. Help me to trust You.” I wish I could say it was a quick and easy road, the road of submission, but it was a long, rocky, curvy road with deep crevices and steep drop-offs.

I can remember the day when I finally fell on my face in the den and wept before the Lord desiring to surrender to the“whatever” He had planned for our lives. Up until that day, I had been living in a state of rebellion, resisting God’s will. I think it was because it didn’t look anything like I had envisioned His “good and perfect will” to look like. I wanted a “picture frame” life. You know the pictures the manufacturers place inside the 4×6 frame in order to get you to buy it; the photo of the beautiful family strolling down the beach – all smiling, loving one another, and enjoying their wonderful stress-free, pain-free life. That “picture frame” life!

But, God has not wanted a “picture frame” life for Mark or for me. What He desired and has woven together is a tapestry. It is a beautiful work of art woven together with peace, joy, serenity, rest, contentment, and love. Oh, the quality,the eternal value of a tapestry life, worth far more than a 4×6 “picture frame” life!

Father, thank you that once we submit and surrender to the “whatever” in our lives, You work to create the most beautiful tapestry out of what seems to be the most painful of circumstances. To obey, to submit, brings about such peace and joy because we know that in all the “whatevers” that You allow, each will ultimately work together for our good and Your glory!

“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you.” James 4:10

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And we know that God causes all things (the “whatevers”) to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:18 and 28

dianne