Tag: faith

The tapestry of our lives

I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of the tapestry of our lives, how everything–actions, decisions we made or did not make, things that happen to us–are threads that weave the complex and ultimately beautiful fabric of God’s plans for this world. C.S. Lewis talks about how all of us, good and bad, serve to carry out God’s ultimate purpose in The Problem of Pain:

A merciful man aims at his neighbor’s good and so does ‘God’s will,’ consciously co-operating with ‘the simple good.’ A cruel man oppresses his neighbor, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good–so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God’s purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or John. The whole system is, so to speak, calculated for the clash between good men and bad men.

In a letter to the family last month, my dad mentioned the tapestry in the most beautiful way.

Lives can indeed be damaged by sin, but the longer I live the more I know to the core of my being that ‘ALL things work together for good to those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:28). As the apostle Paul goes on to say, he has predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. God takes all the garbage that the world throws our way and uses it to kill our old Adam, so that a new man may daily come forth and arise. He takes our tragedy and weaves it into this beautiful tapestry with the face of Christ in it. We cannot see this image from our vantage point, or how our trials fit into the pattern, but make no mistake: they do.

The Small Catechism doesn’t call this life a ‘vale of tears’ for nothing. There is a lot of beauty, a lot of good, a lot of satisfaction during our lives, but also a lot of pain and suffering, a lot of futility, to which the whole creation is subject because of sin. But as Paul says in the same Romans 8, ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this age are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us.’

"Christ the King" tapestry by Graham Sutherland, Coventry Cathedral, Coventry, England

I think one of the biggest reasons we struggle with pain and suffering and evil is that we don’t understand why. The idea that even our suffering serves the pattern in the tapestry of life is intriguing and comforting, and it helps make some sense of the perennial question, why do bad things happen to good people?

We don’t have to have all the answers. But having a glimpse of how the threads of our lives fit into the weave is illuminating.

 

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October 25th, 2011
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The hard stuff: death

Our neighbor passed away this week. She and her husband were good neighbors. One day she was laid off from her job. Then they both got cancer. She took care of him even in the midst of her own chemo treatments.

We did what we could. Our other neighbor mowed their lawn. I brought over food and wine whenever they had an appetite between treatments. We kept tabs on them and encouraged them.

Neither were Christians to our knowledge. Last Maundy Thursday, he died.

Shortly after, she found out her cancer was terminal.

Through it all, I tried to look for windows to speak to her about Jesus. She did not want to go there. The closest we got was talking about the female Unitarian minister who conducted a celebration of life for her husband.

Sunday night, she was very sick. I went over to serve as a witness as she signed some legal documents. The room was full of people. I hugged and kissed her, told her I was praying for her, and left. She died the next afternoon.

When Kate heard the news, she ran upstairs, crying. We had a long talk. I felt woefully inadequate trying to answer questions she has that I have, too. Why didn’t she believe in Jesus? Will we ever see her again? And the terrible sadness that comes over you when you know you might have lost someone forever.

Our broad tenets of the faith are easy to talk about solidly and fearlessly in the abstract. A bus crashes. We pray for the families and explain to the kids the sad fact that, probably, some of the passengers did not know Christ. When the death of someone we believe was not a Christian hits home via a personal relationship, things feel blurrier. How do you explain to a guileless 8-year-old why some people know about Jesus but don’t want to believe in him? Why it’s not as easy as “making” someone talk about their spiritual life, or once you get on the topic, “making” them understand that Jesus is the only Way?

Our kids are no strangers to death. They attend all the wakes and funerals of church members. They understand the concept of the dead body waiting for the Resurrection, while the soul is in heaven. Mourning a Christian is joyously sad. Mourning a non-Christian is just heart-wrenching.

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September 22nd, 2011
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The cathedral at Reims

I’m sitting in Atlanta waiting for my connecting flight, which is 5+ hours after I arrived, apparently due to the first Tennessee home football game of the season, in which Atlanta-based alumni all fly in with their season tickets to root for the Vols. Which at any other time is cute, but tonight, I’m absolutely desperate to see my children after a week away from them, so I hate all those orange-and-white wearing fans who are taking all the early seats into K-town. I know Jonathan has changed because he’s so little that he’s different in a week. Sophia is sick and I want to be with her. Kate is probably her same beautiful self, but I want to make sure.

Meanwhile, to distract myself, I’ll put up a few pictures from the tour we took at the Reims cathedral. Worth noting: half the group I traveled with had absolutely no interest in the cathedral, not even a historical interest, and they quickly snuck off early to do their own thing. The others who stayed were pretty bored. I was the main gaper. It was established early on that I was the Lutheran minister’s wife with three kids, while most everyone else was single and/or married without children, and mostly non-religious. To them, I was a strange specimen. They can’t quite understand my life, but seeing how empty theirs ultimately are, I am glad to be me, with my rock-solid faith that answers those perplexing questions in this world, my amazing family, and everything else I’ve been blessed with instead of the empty pursuit of only worldly pleasure.

The cathedral is called the Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Reims). The original was from c. 400, but this new model dates from the 13th century.

 

Here’s the front. It’s incredibly impressive.

 

It’s also incredibly Catholic…and French. The tour guide said the main three focuses, in order of importance, are Mary, Jesus, and French kings. Above is Jesus crowning Mary in heaven. She didn’t have to spend much time in purgatory.

 

This is the carving that would be front and center if the cathedral were Lutheran: Jesus on the cross. It only comes in at #2 in the Catholic world.

 

…and here are a bunch of French kings. Apparently most of them were crowned here.

 

Inside are some amazing stained glass windows, including this famous one by Chagall. This picture doesn’t even come close to doing justice to the beauty of the windows. They are incredible.

 

On the way out, we saw lots of bullet marks–remnants of the German attack in World War I that destroyed much of the region and vineyards. (Aside: don’t ask about it. Or about WWII, for that matter. They don’t seem to feel that we helped them out in that case. One of our writers kept asking everyone about the wars, and the Champenois got very angry. We heard various comments about how they’d just rebuilt and we came in and messed everything up again. Ouch.)

The cathedral holds about 1,500 people, but the guide said barely 300 show up on a regular Sunday. Shame. It’s a testament to the secular humanist culture sweeping over the world, and Europe is at the forefront.

The cathedral is amazing. I can’t wait to go back to Europe with Derek so we can geek out together on cathedrals, instead of me among the bored wine writers who dubbed cathedrals AFCs. (I’ll leave the acronym to your imagination.) And then maybe we’ll finish our cathedral tour off with a glass of Champagne. Oh wait, I did that already.

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September 2nd, 2011
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