You Are God’s Cross-Stitch Pattern

 

A colleague said a very true thing the other day. She said:

"Life is messy, but that doesn't mean I'm failing."

 

Amen to that! In fact, let me reiterate that point:

Life Is Messy -- But That Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing

 

I wanted to share that very good point, and also share with you what I said to her in response:

"Nah, not failing. Just being creatively artistic along the way. In all sincerity, try to keep this in mind:

If you look at the back of a cross-stitch pattern, it's messy as all get out. All kinds of colors mixed up and jumbled up and going this way and that. You can stare at it and wonder how the heck anything that looked so screwed up, could resemble anything nice, never mind a work of beauty.

But you flip that sucker over and on the other side is an organized, transformed work of art.

I used to have a picture of a lighthouse in a small frame. I started keeping it out of the frame to share this truth with people, once someone explained this point to me. Ultimately I gave it to my pastor to use as it's such a powerful truth.

Because our lives are exactly like that cross-stitch pattern. Our lives, most often to us, look like the backside of that pattern. All jumbled up, with unrecognized beauty, if there is any at all, hidden under jumbles of... stuff.

But God is doing something with us. While we often cannot recognize it as it's happening, when our lives are said and done, God helps us to see the side he's been watching. The other side, which we rarely see when we're in the middle of... life.

God makes that jumbled up mess, those unrecognizable bits of beauty and structure that encompass our lives, connect and make something wonderful.

That's your life, [put your name here, reader]. Revel in it. God is using you, indeed. He already has, with others around you.

 

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 1:6)

"...I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."
(Philippians 3:13-14)(NLT)

"Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
(Hebrews 4:16)

"Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'”
(Matthew 19:26)