The People-Weaver
Wherefore they are no more twain,
but one flesh.
What therefore God hath joined together,
let not man put asunder.
—
Matthew 19:6
It's time to get out the Easter
baskets. We have six. Each one's different, and each one's lovely. This year, as
you set out yours, I hope you'll stop and admire the basketweaving for a
moment. Notice how the weaving joins together different pieces into one, and makes
each basket strong and yet light, beautiful and yet useful. Better together.
Just like marriage!
Besides everything else He is to us, our Lord is a Master
Weaver. Only He doesn't weave with straw or yarn. He weaves with people!
And here's a fun story that proves it:
A friend of mine had seven children. One of them, Stan,
married a wonderful young woman named Lyn. They had a son, but he developed a
birth complication and had to be life-jetted to medical care. It was an ordeal.
Fortunately, he turned out fine . . .
. . . but not long thereafter, Lyn found out she was
expecting another baby . . . AND that she had breast cancer.
She went through treatment at the same Bethesda, Md.,
hospital where they care for the Presidents. Lyn's treatment choices courageously
put the baby's health ahead of hers. She had a second son, born in perfect
health. Three years later, unable to defeat the cancer, she died.
The boys were 3 and 5. All that time, Stan had been trying
to care for his wife, be both mother and father to their sons, and work 48
hours a week. He was tired. Dead tired! He told his mother he would never get
married again.
A year later, he and the boys had moved closer to his
parents. The boys were saying things like, "Daddy, we want a Mom like all
of the other kids." The younger one, Matthew, stood at the door at the day care
as everyone was arriving, and looked at the mothers. He asked one little boy
wistfully, "Is that your Mommy? Does she love you? Does she cook
good?"
The grandmother's heart was already broken, but now it was
shattered. She began to pray, and told everyone she knew to pray, too. Bring
Stan a wife! Bring those boys a mother!
Here's Stan with his
two boys, bachelors three.
A while later, a friend introduced Stan to a young lady in a
neighboring state. They hit it off. One day, one of Stan's sisters called.
The grandmother told her he was out of town, visiting someone named Joy. The
sister asked her last name . . . and burst out laughing. Coincidentally, the
sister and Joy had been friends and had ridden bicycles together all over
Europe years before. They lived in the same dormitory while both completed
their educations.
The grandmother just knew this was the answer to prayer.
When Joy and Stan became engaged, she was going through some
things, getting ready for her new life with Stan and the boys. She found a
picture of a little boy that she had taken at a wedding - the wedding of one of
Stan's sisters. She didn't know him then. She had attended with her own sister,
who knew the family well.
She had no idea who the little boy was. She had just taken
the photo because she thought he was so cute.
Who knew?
That same little boy was now going to be her stepson -- Andrew!
When a "coincidence" like that happens, you laugh . . . you
cry . . . you bow your head to the Weaver. He's the One Who always knows what's
going to happen, who's going to fall in love with whom, and why.
Well, thus encouraged that it was God's will for her to be
woven into this family, she married Stan. She loved those boys. She "cooked good"
for them, too.
Today, they're both grown and married. One just presented
the first great-grandson. Stan and Joy have a teenage daughter, too. All of
them love the Lord, the One Who wove them all together in the bonds of love.
Joy and Stan today . .
. woven together and living happily ever after.
And the new great-grandmother? She says there is nothing she
is as glad about in her whole life as having been sure that all of her children
believed in God, and trusted Him for everything.
She said simply, "There's no safer place to put our loved
ones than in the hand of God." †
