Threads of Life

Donna picked me up from the airport in Chicago last week and continued to be my “chauffer” for the next 24 hours. She was lovely, bright, dressed impeccably and obviously loved the Lord. After meeting her I was now looking forward with great anticipation to my speaking engagement at her church, Oak Community Church!

As we were driving to my hotel she asked me where I was from and I told her, Roswell, Georgia. She was surprised and said she had actually lived there herself for almost a year many years ago.

Then she went on to tell me about her time there. She had a wonderful neighbor who had invested greatly in her life. The neighbor had also taken her to a large Bible study at a church nearby where she had made a recommitment to Jesus Christ.

She then told me the neighbor’s name. Barb E-. I was blown away. I know Barb well and in fact had lived not too far from her at the same time Donna lived there. We had almost been neighbors! And the Bible Study? It was the very one I directed for almost twenty years.

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In September I taught a retreat in Dallas for Grace Community Church. The church was doing the Amazing Collection and was obviously enjoying it very much and “learning for life” about every book in God’s Word. One of the attendees told me that she had been so surprised and delighted when she was watching the First Thessalonians DVD. The testimony was Gaye-Lynn Smith; Gaye-Lynn had given her story literally from her death bed and had passed away shortly after filming. What makes this so remarkable is that Gaye-Lynn had been a missionary in Papua, New Guinea with her years before. After she left the mission field she had lost track of Gaye-Lynn and was so ministered to when she saw the testimony.

Gaye-Lynn’s was probably one of our most miraculous testimonies. We had actually come across Gaye-Lynn’s story through Discipleship Journal Magazine and had been able to contact the church who had filmed her. We then contacted her husband who was living in New Guinea to get permission to include it in our study. And now God was using it to encourage a woman who had served along side Gaye-Lynn in New Guinea years before! Amazing!

When I look at the many times threads of lives have woven together it really is something only God could do. Several years ago, Donna had lived in this area for only a few months, but was saved through a woman who brought her to our Bible Study. Twenty years later she was able to tell me, the speaker she had brought in to minister to the womens’ ministry she was now directing!

Gaye-Lynn passed away years ago but was still touching the life of a friend long after she had gone home to be with the Lord.

God is writing a story. We seldom see all that He is doing with the threads but when occasions like these arrive I am reminded that He is weaving something beautiful.

Corrie Ten Boom wrote the following

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors He worketh steadily.
Oftimes He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.
Not til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas, and explain the reasons why.
The dark threads are as needful, in the Weavers skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

Job 7:6
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle