The Embroiderer

I do not know the original source for this story, but it has been floating around the internet for a while. I think it has a good message, so I figured it was something worthy of including here...

"Once there was a little boy who used to watch his mother sitting in a chair by the window, sewing on a piece of cloth held tight in a wooden hoop. He would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She informed him that she was embroidering.

He didn't understand what that was. From the underside as he watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand, all he could see was knots and dangling thread ends. It looked like a big mess.

The boy's mother would smile at her boy, look down and gently say, "My son, you go about your playing for a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my knee and let you see it from my side."

The boy would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from his view. But he decided to just play with his blocks and let her do whatever it was that seemed so interesting to her.

Some time later the mother called to her son and said: "I'm finished with my work now, come and sit on my knee to see."

When the little boy climbed up into his mother's lap he was surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset. He could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.

Then his Mother would explain: "My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top. It was a design. I was only following it. Now looking at it from my side and you can see what I was doing all along."

Many times through the years I have looked up to my Heavenly Father and said, "Father, what are You doing?" He has answered, "I am embroidering your life." I say, "But it looks like a mess to me. It seems so jumbled. The threads seem so dark. Why can't they all be bright?"

The Father seems to tell me, "'My child, you go about your business of doing My business, and one day I will bring you to Heaven and put you on My knee and you will see the plan from My side."