I am coming to you in a rule-breaking mood on an evening that finds me absolutely elated and, as I believe, full of the Spirit. I say that it is a “rule-breaking mood” b/c I know that this is a blog that is designated for “Think-Tank” purposes but since I am the self-declared big cheese of the blog, I will exercise executorial prerogative and talk about my evening. As most of you know, Pastor Samy is here with us from Croix des Bouquet, Haiti. This evening, he and I had supper with mom and dad at Litton’s. It had been a pretty forgettable day up ‘til the evening hours. But, then we had a wonderful meal there at the restaurant and talked about lots of things Haitian; of course, mom and dad had never met him before. The meal was great but about half of the way through, dad suggested that we take a little dessert over to have at his parents’ house later so that Pastor Samy could then meet my grandparents. Abbreviation: we went over to their house off Callahan Dr. in North Knoxville and had a lovely time and I just kept wondering at the way God had brought these two worlds together that I never would have guessed might intersect. But they had, somehow. We talked and laughed and joked, just like Wilkerson’s do. We taught Pastor Samy the definition of the expression: “you’re pulling my leg.” At one point in the evening, grandma played us a tape of her mother playing the piano. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice trembled and she talked about her mother. Her mother had once been dangerously abusive of alcohol but God had changed her heart and after a certain time, she never touched it again. The evening was so warm and memorable.
Then we left and headed back down Central and got two Americanos at the Starbucks and my Geiger Counter began to rise. But when we got back to Field’s house, I really began to sense that God was moving in my heart. I walked in the door and there were Pastors Field and Samy and I repeated that it was just so astounding the way that God was weaving lives together. Then I said the word that send Field into a tear that lasted half and hour. I said that is was a “tapestry.” He then proceeded to tell us the story of sister Mattie (whose last name alludes me) who had lost her husband and two sons in a car accident in one afternoon. She would later tell Field that she never blamed God for what had happened but that she would like to know why. He then told us that some 20 years later, he went on to have something of a vision-like dream in which he was walking along with the Lord Jesus and he looked up at the stars and saw that the sky was nothing but a jumble of tangles and knots. He asked the Lord “why” and the response was “my son, for now you are viewing the tapestry from beneath but one day I will take you to see it from above.” Later, he would go on to share this dream in a sermon and sister Mattie had jumped to her feet a praised God with a loud voice. Nail on the head.
I’ll give a “wow” to the way God moves in our hearts on evenings like these and a challenge to those who will hear it: if you ever have the chance, just happen by Pastor Field’s house when you have no pressing obligations and sit with him for a while and then just drop a mention of sister Mattie or the money that was lost at the bank. Your blessing meter will “peg out” as they say, much as mine did just this evening. God truly is good all the time. Now that you’ve heard it, everyone get back to research!