The Carpet Weaver

Carpet Weavings

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
(Romans 8:28)




He was weaving.
“That is a strange-looking carpet you are making!” said the visitor.
“Just stoop down and look underneath,” was the reply.
The man stooped. The plan was on the other side, and in that moment a light broke upon his mind.

The Great Weaver is busy with His plan.

Do not be impatient; suffice to know that you are part of the plan and that He never errs.
 Wait for the light of the later years, and the peep at the other side. Hope on!

White and black, and hodden-gray,
Weavers of webs are we;
To every weaver one golden strand
Is given in trust by the Master-Hand;
Weavers of webs are we.

And that we weave, we know not,
Weavers of webs are we,
The thread we see, but the pattern is known
To the Master-Weaver alone, alone;
Weavers of webs are we.
~John Oxenham.

Of many of the beautiful carpets made in India it may be said that the weaving is done to music.
 The designs are handed down from one generation to another, and the instructions for their
making are in script that looks not unlike a sheet of music. Indeed, it is more than an accidental
resemblance, for each carpet has a sort of tune of its own.

The thousands of threads are stretched on a great wooden frame, and behind it on a long bench sit the workers. The master in charge reads the instructions for each stitch in a strange chanting tone, each color having its own particular note.

The story makes us think of our own life web. We are all weavers and day by day we work in the threads—now dark now bright—that are to go into the finished pattern.

But blessed are they who feel sure
that there is a pattern;
who hear and trust the directing Voice,
And so weave the changing threads to music.
~W. P. Hart.

Fallen threads I will not search for—I will weave.
~George McDonald




He is weaving.
Are you feeling that life for you has become a tangled skein;
 tangled with problems that seem to be desperately hard to unravel?
If so, examine them and see whether it be not true that somewhere
in the tangle there is the golden thread of an obvious present duty.

Commence with that thread; what ought you to do Next? Now?
Never mind tomorrow!

Father, my life is in tangle,
Thread after thread appears
Twisted and broken and knotted,
Viewed through the lapse of years.

I cannot straighten them, Father;
Oh, it is very hard;
Somehow or other it seemeth,
All I have done is marred.

I did not see they were getting
Into this tangled state;
Hoe it has happened I know not—
Is it too late, too late?

Is it? “Ah, no!” Thou dost whisper,
“Out of this life of thine
Yet may come wonderful beauty
Wrought by My Power Divine.”

Take then, the threads, O my Father,
Let them Thy mind fulfill,
Work out in love a pattern
After Thy holy will!

~Charlotte Murray.

The case looks utterly hopeless. Hope is dead—yea, buried, and the bones are lyin
 scattered at the grave’s mouth. But the eye fixed on the living God can bring a resurrection
Hope may yet flourish again. The net of terrible entanglement may be broken
 by a Father’s hand, and liberty and life abundant may yet be mine!

“The Saviour can solve every problem,
The tangles of life can undo,
There is nothing too hard for Jesus,
There is nothing that He cannot do.”

(Taken From Springs In The Valley)

“Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.”
(Isaiah 33:14)




Lace Weaving
“I will give thee the treasures of darkness.” (Isaiah 45:3)

In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns.

These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window,
 which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits
 where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving.
 “Thus,” we are told by the guide, “do we secure our choicest products.
 Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself
is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light.”

May it not be the same with us in our weaving?
Sometimes it is very dark.
We cannot understand what we are doing.
We do not see the web we are weaving.

We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience.
Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the
most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid.
Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting.
 God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears.
(--J. R. Miller)

Always remember:
“The shuttles of His purpose move to carry out His own design.”