A Tangled Mess

I’ve recently returned from a two week trip to Vientiane City, Laos.  While there we toured the city by day and taught English in the evenings.  It was a great trip and took care of my 90 day visa run.  One of the most fascinating places we visited was Laos Textiles.  From the outside, this looks like a large house and I believe it is.  However, it houses a silk textile business that is out-of-this-world.  The company was started by an American woman and her husband.  We met them both and were given a detailed tour of the operation.  The main floor of the house is a shop where one can buy some of the best woven silk items in Southeast Asia (and I daresay, the world).  The quality is exacting and the work is detailed and beautiful.  The items available in the shop are only a fraction of what they do and are not their main source of revenue.  We were given a tour of the weaving room, the quality control room, got to see the silk being wound into usable fiber, and witnessed some of the newly dyed fibers drying in the sun.  While we were there, three of the ladies were working on a special order for fabric that will decorate the salon of a famous designer in Paris.  The fabric will be one-of-a-kind, a pattern and colors designed specifically for the client that will never be offered to another.  Three weavers was the most they would allow to work on one project because the finished products have to match exactly to be up to their standards.

Other weavers were busy working on other beautiful pieces: wall hangings, scarves, tapestries, and more.  Some were incredibly intricate and detailed and some were beautiful for their simplicity.  The weavers, the women who work there, have been working for this particular company since it’s beginning.  They are highly skilled weavers who learned this craft at their mother’s knees.  We were told that given a printed pattern with dimensions, the weaver could tell you exactly how much silk—how much of each color, would be needed to complete the project before they began.

Before any weaving is done, the silk threads are spun into the weight needed for the project and dyed to the right color.   Then the truly impressive feat; the weaver creates a template.  I’ve included a picture of a template with this post, because otherwise it’s hard to describe.  To me, it looked like a tangled, knotted mess.  Sometimes the mess was quite pretty, sometimes not.  But when the weaver looks at it, she can see the finished cloth.  In the mess she sees the pattern, she sees when she has to thread in a new color or lay another aside.  She sees where a knot or a piece of embrodiery will be worked in.  The weaver can see it all in the template she’s created.

I’ve heard before, as I’m sure you have, that life is like a tapestry.  It never registered quite as profoundly until I watched these women work their magic.  Creating beauty like this is a slow process, they do not finish a piece a day.  Depending on the piece, it can take months or even years.  They complete only 8-15 inches per day.

Sometimes life seems like a tangled mess.  We look at what’s going on in the world, at what’s happening in our own lives and wonder what in the world God is thinking.  We get angry when some of the threads of our lives seem to end or when what seemed like a predictable pattern changes and new and unexpected things happen.  Sometimes we wonder when it will end, or question how in the world beauty will come from what we see.  Sometimes it seems like God is just taking too long to bring about His promises.

Days later we visited another shop and saw the tapestry work of a different people group.  This tapestry was lovely as well, embroidered rather than woven.  But it was created in a very unique way.  The shop owner turned the piece over to show us the back side of the work.  It was knots and odd lines.  She explained that this was embroidered from the back side.  The women working on it saw the “mess”, but knew the beauty being created by it.

Sometimes I think we forget that we are threads and God is the weaver, the Creator of the pattern and of the template.  We are part of what He is creating.  We forget that He sees the end while we are still in the middle.  We forget that He sees the mess, but knows what He is making out of it.  He knows exactly what materials to use and how long it will take to finish and He’s committed to finishing it.

hiI know that this isn’t a perfect anaolgy.  Not everything that happens in this world is God’s doing or His plan; people have free will and people are sinful and do terrible things.  But looking at that tangled template, I’m reminded that God’s Word says, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to bring it completion” (Philippians 1:6) and “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Another really cool part of the tour was quality control.  Obviously, as skilled as these weavers are, they do occasionally make mistakes.  But in this company, nothing is wasted.  Each piece, even if it has a flaw,  is used to create something lovely and valuable, something expensive and luxurious.  A framed piece of art, a handbag, a pillow, a journal or barrette… I love that God works that way, too.  Under His skilled hand and in His perfect time, He uses our mistakes and makes beauty out of our mess.

“Something beautiful, something good.  All my confusion, He understood.  All I had to offer Him was brokeness and strife, but He made something beautiful of my life.” –Gloria Gaither