In Ancient Greek Mythology, the life of each person was represented by a thread that was spun, measured, and finally cut by the three sister Goddesses known as the Moirai, or fates. If we were to imagine our lives as threads, what would our threads look like? Would they be made from humble undyed wool or delicate silk from far off lands, or even interwoven with stands of gold? Now, imagine that God is weaving a great and marvelous tapestry, incorporating all of His creations and His Plan for the salvation and exaltation of all of His children. Imagine further that He has selected a place on His great and glorious tapestry to weave the thread of our life. Let us assume that ours is a particularly fine thread and that, as far as we can tell, God has chosen a particularly drab and shabby patch of the tapestry into which to weave us. Maybe, horror of horrors, He is not embroidering us into some exquisitely beautiful design but merely using our thread to patch a tear in the fabric. We will stick out like a sore thumb, indeed, in our petty revenge against God, we may try to stick His thumb with His own needle for daring to waste our precious thread on so mundane a task. In the act of ultimate pride, we may refuse to be included altogether in the tapestry, if God insists on wasting our precious thread on a patch that is so far beneath us. “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). How blind and foolish are we to assume that any part of God's tapestry will in the end be anything less than heartbreakingly beautiful? Are we so convinced in our understanding of our own relative worth and importance that we will refuse to pass through the eye of the needle and become a part of God's tapestry? It may seem beneath us right now, but whatever intrinsic beauty the thread of our life possesses on its own, its aesthetic value is utterly meaningless if it remains as a single strand unconnected to the greater tapestry and good for nothing but to be discarded and trampled underfoot. We must allow ourselves to be pierced by the still, small, needle sharp voice of the Holy Ghost, and allow our Father in Heaven to knit us all together in unity and love into His dazzlingly beautiful tapestry. The beauty of that tapestry will be diminished if we refuse to pass through the eye of the needle and lose our sense of self as a distinct and separate thread. But if we will humble ourselves and voluntarily lay down our own threadlike identity to become one with the greater whole of the tapestry, then we will pass through the eye of the needle and enter into the Kingdom of God. Individual threads may get swallowed up in the cohesive whole that is the tapestry, but the identity of the tapestry is just as strongly bound to the identity of each individual thread. We become one with the Father and He becomes one with us. We become part of the tapestry and the tapestry becomes part of us. I hope we can all willingly choose to pass through the eye of the needle and in our own small way add to the glory and majesty of God's tapestry. And if God uses the thread of our life to patch one of the many, many holes in the fabric of reality, then to what other nobler purpose could we possibly be put? To whatever pattern or purpose God weaves the thread of our lives when we pass through the eye of the needle, we can rest assured that the end result will be more glorious and wonderful and beautiful than we could have ever possibly have imagined.
