Everyone has an amazing story. A story of struggle and triumph. Grief and joy. Heartache and great love.
Sunday I had the privilege of getting to speak to a group of women that reminded me again of that. After my talk (thanks for praying :-)) I was able to talk with individual women as they poured out their hearts and a part of the tapestry that is their lives. God has taken them and is taking them on journeys marked with sorrow and pain that are leading them to paths of beauty and healing. They are seeing God’s hand working intricately and intentionally, weaving things into their lives that make the exquisite pattern unique and all their own.
They are beginning to see how the things of the past, the scraps and torn fabrics of painful experiences, are being used to create this new and lovely tapestry. The beautiful from the broken. Their eyes once filled with tears of grief are now filled with tears of joy and gratitude for what God is doing.
Maybe this is part of the reason that I love hunting down old things and restoring them and using them for new purposes. Maybe that’s why the wear and tear of the treasures I find doesn’t bother me, but warms my heart. A constant reminder of what Jesus does for us. The old gives me the opportunity to do something new. It gives me something to work with. Something to hold in my hands and make my own and leave my mark on.
God used lovely strangers to remind me of something familiar. And once again, I will never quite be the same…
Isaiah 43:19 – See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Joel 2:25 – I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…
Job 42:12 – So the LORD blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning.
