I can remember once when I was just a little boy my Mom, Nana and I drove to my Nana’s sister’s house in the next town. It was a warm, Summer afternoon so I went outside to play in the yard while they all sat around the kitchen table to talk. After over an hour playing and exploring by myself I got bored and walked inside to see what they were doing. Laid out on the kitchen table was a large, homemade quilt that was still being sown together. Scraps of multicolored fabrics were scattered everywhere. I sat on a chair and watched as my great aunt painstakingly sewed a little piece onto the collage of color. I looked over at one edge of the quilt and saw a piece of thread sticking out. Without thinking I reached over to pull it.

“NO!” It was my Nana’s voice. I jumped back. That was the first time I can ever remember her yelling at me. Seeing the startled look on my face she smiled and gently showed me why she had yelled. That single piece of thread wove in and out of the different pieces of fabric. Like a curvy mountain road it made its way from one end of the quilt to the other. If I had yanked on it I might have torn the entire quilt and ruined hours of work.

As I look back on that moment today I can see that each of our lives is a lot like that thread. We are all just a single string in God’s tapestry. We can’t always see where we are going or what we are connected to but God, the master artist can. He is creating something so beautiful, so interconnected that it is beyond our ability to comprehend. All we can know is that we are an important part of His creation and if we pull ourselves out of it, we will leave a gaping hole.

Don’t feel lost in the tapestry of life then. Embrace your place in it. You may only be a single piece of thread but your love and your life helps to hold the whole thing together. God loves you and has put you here for a purpose. Find it and live it each and every day of your life.