WOVEN

PSALM 139: 15 and 16

My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

***

She sat alone in the overcrowded living room. Why did they have so many chairs? A slow smile spread as the echoes of Christmases past came to her … the family gathered … laughing … making fun of the seating for “thousands”.

 

Her smile turned down at the corners of her mouth and a tear dripped on to the leather bound book in her lap. If only she could live in the happiness place all the time.

 

Her thoughts went by themselves to a dark place and memories tumbled like rocks sliding down a hill. She felt suffocated by their weight. Why couldn’t she heal from the darkness?

 

The room brightened and a calloused hand reached for her wrinkled one. She smiled up into merry brown eyes and rose still clutching the book in her other hand.

 

“You can set that down. We are just going for a walk. I have some things to show you.”

 

She looked at Yashmea and reluctantly put the worn leather book on the coffee table. She felt almost unclothed without it.

 

Yashmea, still smiling, laid his hand on the leather.

“It’s time you moved the book to a different place.”

 

“But what difference does it make where I put the book?”

 

“We need to move it from here to here.” She felt his hand gently touch her head and then her heart.

 

In the next moment the room fell away and she stood hand in hand with Yashmea in the depths of the earth. Frightened, she clutched his hand as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. Shadows shifted, small specks of light flickered, and a rhythmic sound gently sorted through the darkness.

 

“What is that?”

 

Yashmea held up his hand and before them stood a giant spinning wheel. Spools and spools of black thread lay stacked all around but before she could get a better look, they were gone.

 

Now they stood on a body of water but somehow didn’t sink. She kept her hand firmly in Yashmea’s. It was lighter here but still dim and difficult to make out their surroundings. As she squinted slightly, another spinning wheel appeared. She watched in fascination as sparkling threads were produced then stacked in meticulous rows.

 

“I never knew that threads could be made from water.”

 

In a heartbeat, Yashmea squeezed her hand and they stood together on the top of a mountain. Suspended in the air above them stood another enormous spinning wheel. Nearby threads spun from blue sky and fragrant flowers were proudly towering in orderly rows.

 

And so they traveled on and on through many strange and wonderful places … all spinning the threads of life. At last Yashmea brought her to the place she knew must exist. If ever there was holy ground … this was it. The loom stood and Yashmea himself sat down before it, lovingly he gathered differing threads and began to weave.

 

As quickly as it began, the experience ended. She sat once again in the crowded living room.

 

         “Woven … I am woven together by Him. He chose the threads for me … to be me.  From the darkness of my sorrows to the mountaintops of blue skies … chosen to make me.”

 

So let’s not pick at our threads.

We are perfectly woven.