Woven By God
My mother was a weaver. Her loom was 6-feet
long and 5-feet wide. It took up a sizeable portion of our small
dining room in Coquille, Oregon.
Looms are designed to provide support and
tension as thread is systematically transformed into cloth. The
warp is strung vertically and holds the tension; it is the
backbone of the weave. Waft threads are woven between and around
and through the warp, creating the pattern and design.
I recall long nights watching her—with Dad as
long-suffering assistant—warping her loom for a new creation.
Yards of thread were laboriously fed through small metal guides
and advanced onto a giant roller. Foot pedals raised and lowered
complex harnesses holding groups of threads carefully placed by
color and texture. Nothing is ever random in the warping of a
loom.
Watching my parents warp Mom’s loom always
looked boring and tedious to me. I saw no pattern. No beauty.
And yet, in my mother’s creative imagination each thread had
purpose. Each one was critical to a plan only she could see.
Today it is apparent to me that life
resembles my mother’s weaving. Our warp is the DNA and traits we
inherit from our family. I have my father’s brown eyes, my
paternal grandmother’s body, and my mother’s arthritis.
Other threads in my warp reflect the culture
I was born into, some of it godly and some not so much.
My adopted daughter is a fascination to me.
Her birth mother left her in the hospital when she was born and
they have never spoken. Yet their mannerisms and fears and the
things they love (animals, blues music, drama) are the same.
They even walk with the same gait. How does that happen? Could
we have hereditary traits science has yet to discover?
After the threads were fed one-by-one onto
her loom, mother always rested. She may have been eager to begin
the new project, but she stopped first. Empty spools were
discarded. Unused thread was carefully stored for consideration
in future projects. Blisters and cuts on her fingers were given
a brief time for healing.
Then Mother began weaving.
She sat high on a bench, balanced on firm
cushions. Her feet moved from pedal to pedal, creating a
rhythmic percussion as she threw the shuttle from side to side.
Back and forth. Clang. Back and forth. Clang.
Gradually a beautiful pattern began to
emerge.
Scripture tells us that God knew us before
the foundation of the world. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed
you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I
consecrated you.” Ephesians 1:4 says, “… even as he chose us in
him before the foundation of the world.”
Life is the threads of the shuttle moving
through the warp of our inherited traits. Each experience, each
seemingly chance encounter, goals met, tragedy survived, friends
made and friends lost, are not random. They are carefully guided
by the hand of the Master Weaver. Our unique pattern was
imagined before time. That’s why it takes decades for our true
beauty to be revealed.
None of my mother’s weaving survived her. I
didn’t find a single placemat or bookmark after she passed.
Everything she made was given away as a gift to others.
Yet she remains ever-present in my warp.
Pieces of her were put into my life at the beginning of time.
The true purpose of those threads is just now becoming apparent
as the shuttle of my own life
experiences passes back and forth. Clang. Back and forth. Clang.
We each have a
pattern and it is beautiful.