The Backside of the Tapestry

In big, cheerful font, the email to my family simply read, “OUR DAUGHTER IS HAVING TWINS!” But about two months later I found myself officiating at the small funeral service for George and Gwendolyn – the twins who would do their growing up in heaven. On the Saturday night before Mother’s day we received a call from our son-in-law that he had to take our daughter to the hospital. On Sunday morning little George passed away and on Wednesday little Gwendolyn went to heaven. Even though both were very premature, other babies their size had survived. The following Monday the funeral service was held. I had asked our daughter to have another pastor conduct the service, but she wanted me to do it and so I consented. Just several months prior to this memorial service I had had the privilege and joy of officiating at their wedding – now I was officiating at the funeral for their two children. In preparing for the funeral service I began to think about a true story that I had read. The story related how in one day a father of 10 lost all of his children in a tragic car accident. And on the same day, and under some very peculiar circumstances, every one of his multi-million dollar businesses failed. All of them! So in one day he and his wife were left childless and penniless. And it was hard to reconcile the type of life he lived with what had happened so suddenly to his family. He was widely respected as a great family man and also as an honest and fair businessman. Besides serving on the city council, he also taught Sunday School at their local church. He was a man of great integrity – what he was in public he was in private. What he was in church he was in the car on the way to church. He cared for the less fortunate in his community and if an employee of one of his companies needed financial help, he made sure the money was there. And even though his heart was broken, on the afternoon that they were to meet with the funeral director to pick out the caskets, he first stopped at the church to meet with the pastor and to spend some time worshipping God. The pastor put in a CD by the group “Casting Crowns.” As the music of “I Will Praise You in The Storm” filled the air, the brokenhearted man raised his hands in worship. Tears filled his eyes when he heard these words, “…and though my heart is torn, I will praise You in this storm!” After about an hour they left the church and made the agonizing trip to the funeral home. But their ordeal didn’t end there. Shortly after the funeral with he and his wife still reeling from what had happened to them, the husband’s health began to fail. And after a long series of tests, doctors were at a total loss as to what was wrong. Within a couple of months he was almost unrecognizable. He was swollen, disfigured, and every inch of his blackened skin was covered with pus filled sores. His nights were spent tossing and turning, unable to sleep because of the constant itching and the fever that racked his body. His condition epitomized “misery.” Through an email, three of his friends heard of the horrific disease he was battling and made arrangements to meet together to visit him. When they came to see him in the hospital, his illness had ravaged his body so much that they had to double check to make sure the name on the doctor’s chart was that of their friend. He went through seasons of very deep depression and unbearable grief. Even though he had had a healthy relationship with God and many of his prayers were answered in amazing and miraculous ways, it seemed that for some reason God had now turned a deaf ear. But through the agony of all that had happened to him, the story went on to say, the husband and father’s faith remained steadfast. He spent tortuous hours wondering “Why?”, but he never came to the point of saying, “If this is the way God is going to treat me, I am finished with serving Him!” Sometimes life is hard and sometimes it doesn’t appear to make sense. “Why is this happening to me?!?” seems to be often on the mind. In the fall of 2001 my wife and I had to deal with some difficult life-stuff that left both of us emotionally drained, and in the summer of 2002 my dad passed away very unexpectedly (even though he was taken to the doctor twice the week before he died and the doctors could not find anything wrong with him). During this same period of time, I was battling with some major health issues and in 2003 and 2004 I spent a total of 6 weeks in the hospital. My wife didn’t inform me until I got home from the first surgery how bad the surgeon said my condition was and how close I had come to having a permanent address in heaven. Concurrent with these events there were the stresses that accompany working full-time plus pastoring a church plus going through a building program. And then there was Mother’s Day weekend of 2004. The phone rang in the middle of the church service – it was an emergency call from my wife. Baby George was dying and I needed to get to the hospital as fast as I could. I asked the worship leader and a guest speaker to take the rest of the service and asked the congregation to pray. George died that Sunday and Gwendolyn a couple of days later. In the first part of this article I mentioned that as I was preparing for the funeral service for the twins I had read the true story of the man who had lost his ten children and his businesses in one day. And after that, his health. Most of you have probably read or heard about this story also. Except for me bringing it into the current cultural setting, it’s a story found in the Bible. It’s the story of Job. In one afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Job lost everything, and most tragically their children (chapters 1-2). Most of the rest of the book of Job is a record of the fierce and passionate dialogue that took place between Job and his friends as they tried to figure out, “Why has this happened?” It is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written. And a remarkable part of the story comes early in the story at the end of chapter one. Chapter one ends by saying, “Through all of this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God.” I think that is an amazing statement and two things jump out to me from that verse. First, think about the word “through.” Living life sometimes means we have to go “through.” Psalm 23:3 says, “Yeah, though I walk “through” the valley of the shadow of death (the valley of deep darkness or trial).” I don’t know about you, but I want to go AROUND, but God calls us to go THROUGH. We want to bypass the financial struggles, the physical illness struggles, the marital problems, the struggles with our children, the struggles we have with friends and coworkers. But God calls us to go through. “Through all of this, Job…” Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, he didn’t blame God. “Through all of this Job…did not blame God.” Take a moment and try to place yourself in the second pew of the church seated immediately behind Mr. and Mrs. Job. Directly in front of them – ten coffins lined up across the church. The ten coffins of their children. Exactly 7 days ago the entire Job clan had gathered at the oldest son’s home for a birthday party. The sounds of joy and laughter and fun filled the air. Now – heartache and unspeakable grief filled the hearts of Job and his wife. But when the organist began to play the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” through a flood of tears Job rose to his feet and raised his hands in praise to God. Facing a funeral he worshipped! How many people today, at the first sign of trouble, shake an angry fist at God? “God, why have You done this to me?” is too often the bitter response. It should instead be, “God, I don’t understand and the pain is greater than I can bear, but in the midst of this storm I am determined to praise You and love You! I WILL praise You in this storm!” (Remember, when things are dark, it’s not wrong to cry out, “Why?!?!” Jesus did it on Calvary). The struggles that my wife and I and our family have gone through are by no means unique – most of you have faced your own times of intense trial and darkness and questions of “Why?” And for some of you, your storms have been far more severe. In talking with friends and relatives I sometimes feel that we have just passed through a spring shower and they have faced the full force of an F5 tornado. I remember wondering “Why?” when our church secretary and young mother of five lost her battle with cancer. Why hadn’t God healed her? I can still see the picture of her husband and five children standing alongside the coffin before it was lowered into the earth. I wondered “Why?” when the teenage boy who mowed the church lawn was tragically killed in a car accident. Why did the wife of a friend of ours develop Alzheimer’s disease at a young age? I titled this article, “The Backside of the Tapestry.” Have you ever looked at the reverse side of this decorative and colorful type of material? A tapestry is a heavy cloth woven with rich and colorful threads into stunning scenes or designs – sometimes they are hung on walls for decoration and sometimes they are used to cover furniture. On the front you can see the beautiful colors and patterns and scenes – all woven together in perfect order and harmony. But on the back all you see are the colors and patterns that don’t seem to go together or make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes the loosely hanging threads seem so out of place, and it definitely doesn’t look like something you would want to hang on your wall or put on your furniture. It has no beauty and just seems to be a disorganized piece of no-purpose cloth. Job (and Mrs. Job) only saw the backside of the tapestry. They didn’t understand. Life didn’t make sense. In chapters one and two we are immediately able to see behind the scenes and are given a glimpse of the heavenly battle between Satan and God. But it’s the part of the story that Job never got to witness. And so we see, at least in part, the reason for Job’s troubles. But Job isn’t privy to such information. To him – one day he is just sailing along fine serving God with his whole heart listening to the laughter of children. And a month later? While a fever racks his frail body, the awful memory of those ten coffins continually fills his waking hours. Through many dark and depressing nights of anguish he couldn’t see how any possible good could come out of what had happened. BUT GOD WAS WEAVING HIS LIFE TOGETHER INTO A BEAUTIFUL DESIGN! When the end of the book came, Job finally got to see the front of the tapestry…and it was far more wonderful and beautiful than he could have ever have imagined! Read chapter 42. The Divine Weaver had taken all of the pain and sadness and confusion and anguish and tears and disappointment of the preceding months and turned it ALL into something beautiful. At the funeral for George and Gwen I held up a small piece of tapestry. I showed the backside first. The color scheme and patterns didn’t seem to make sense or fit together and it was hard to detect a pattern or scene. But when I turned it over you could see the beautiful mountain scene, the flowing river, the meadow and the two deer standing in the meadow – one buck and one doe. Little George and little Gwendolyn. Perhaps right now your life doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Maybe there is some tremendous pain that you are going through right now. Unbearable grief surrounded by days of darkness. Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 that “All things work together for good to them that love God.” He doesn’t say that all things are good – but that GOD CAN WEAVE ALL THINGS (the good and the bad) into something good. If there is one thing I could leave you with it is this: despite the pain you may be going through right now, GOD CARES DEEPLY FOR YOU!!! And He can take all of the confusion and all of the pain and all of the senselessness and weave it together into something far more beautiful and more amazing than you could ever possibly dream! Cry out to Him today…He is much closer than you think! Copyright 2008 All rights reserved