There is a beautiful illustration that’s been around for ages about how life is like a tapestry, and on this side of Heaven we only get to see the underside — all the seams and strings. We don’t get to see the beautiful topside that God sees and is creating. It really is a beautiful idea, to think that where we see chaos, God sees what He’s making of it. It can be a relief to see all this as happening outside of our control, this big beautiful blanket woven around us.

But, what about those ugly seams we see and want to erase because Lord help me, that was me who cut that jagged piece? A tapestry is all God’s design, completely out of our hands, and while it’s comforting to think that we had no part in it, we see with painful clarity at times how untrue that is.

I’ve seen how painfully untrue that is for me. And as I consider the wounds I’ve inflicted and the damage I’ve caused, I feel like a child with dark crayon in hand — my clumsy, sweaty fingers grasping and pressing down as hard as I can. I let the wax build in dark, wide, ugly swatches. I seek to ruin; my heart is fixed on destruction. I don’t stop at paper’s edge; I mark the table, the chairs, the wall. I’ve done this in my life; I have left my angry mark on every last inch.

And it is easy to look on, after the emotion swell has receded, aghast at the ugliness I’ve made. It is easy to conclude that I have ruined it all, that my only hope is for God to wipe it all clean and start over, if that’s even possible. It is easy to drown in despair at the ruins, because there is no denying I did this.

This is where I found myself when I began to see the most beautiful thing. Instead of a tapestry — far above my head, out of reach, and untouchable — I saw Heaven come down to all that ugly mess I’d made. And I watched as out of the ugliest of streaks and blotches, He made art. Where I thought I had ruined everything, He used the tools only He has to shape and stretch and recolor marks made with anger and malice. He took the very things I used for destruction and made them beautiful.

But this is what struck me, as I stood there with dark crayon in hand, eyes wide and brimming with tears of awe, gratitude, and reverence. He did not take the crayon out of my hand. As He, humming joyfully, worked with the marks I swore I’d never make again, He nudged me to draw a little more, a little better this time, like this. He knew I would make these marks, even though it was not His decision. He was not surprised. And He was not upset with me for marking, only calling me to draw better.

And this is the beauty and the weight of this life, that we are constantly marking. We are drawing as we go, and we have a choice of how we draw. But this is not our drawing, it is God’s. And I used to think the best I could do is to tread lightly and shine brilliantly for God, but He did not create us for this. Creator God formed us in His image — and so we create. We draw. We mark. On His canvas. And He takes those marks we make and incorporates them into a drawing of which we can only see a tiny portion now. He picks up the bits and pieces we scratch out in our passion and the doodles of our absentmindedness, and He uses them.

Many times He so alters our work we cannot even pick it out from His greater design, and we thank Him in breathless wonder for His perfection, the way He knows so much better than we do. But ever so rarely, we draw in just the right shape and color, in  just the right spot. and we watch with awestruck humility as God uses our little doodle just as we drew it. One day, possibly long into eternity, when the canvas is complete and all the Saints gather round to see what God has done, I hope to hear God say, “And this is where my child drew, and it was just what I imagined should go there.”