Love, Time After Time

“There’s something like a line of golden thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his son or daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.” John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

Time follows after time, and now here is a whole New Year flipped over from the old one.  Fresh and ready for weaving. Except that some threads are already woven and we must carry the picture on with those threads present.  Our family threads, Father, Mother, others, we started out all woven into other people’s lives.

Words like golden thread or maybe trip wires were laid down in our impressionable young lives.  Powerful words that can make a child stand taller or rather stoop lower.  Threads become golden cloth or wires get tighter as ever more are added, as time follows after time.

Words like golden thread

I love you, you are beautiful, you did that so well, you are very good at that, one day you will be the best…, I will always be there for you, come tell me what is troubling you, shall we pray together, God loves you with all the love in the world, thank you, I am sorry, I believe in you, you are my son/you are my daughter and I will always be thankful for you.

Words like trip wires

Sorry I can’t make it, you always seem to fail at…, why can’t you be more like…, your sister/brother is better at…, leave me alone, I don’t care, I hate you, I wish you had never been born, I am not interested, I need to work so I won’t…, why are you always so…, you just won’t be any good at that, why don’t you love me like…, why do you never…

When you pick up the unfinished cloth you are taking into this year, how does the weaving look to you?  Are the already woven threads shaping comfort or fear, grace or a shroud? What do you hear when you stop to think? What are the echoes that guide you or haunt you?

The words of your Father, your Mother, others. With so many families split through the centre and up to 50% of marriages in the West ending in divorce, there is often silence, no more talking at all. Children left fatherless or motherless, no golden thread to hold, just longing.

How can we weave beauty unless someone shows us?  How can we be shaped by grace unless we are held? A Father’s love always hopes, always trusts, never fails.  Where is this love to be found when we have no golden thread to make our cloth?

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families,he leads out the prisoners with singing;” Psalm 68 v5-6a, NIV

God promises to be your eternal Father, Mother, others.  To take your unfinished cloth and weave it through with these everlasting words,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31 v3, NIV

He loves you today, with enough love for all eternity.  With gold enough for your yesterdays, today and all your tomorrows.  You cannot deserve His love, or make Him love you more or less.  He loved you even before you were born.  And you mean everything to Him, just as you are.  If you have been abandoned, left with longing deeper than you can speak, if your trust has been abused, if words have caused you to stoop lower rather than stand tall.  Give your cloth to Him.  Today.

Ask Him to take the fear and weave comfort, to exchange your shroud for grace. Ask and you will receive. When a child needs love, a true Father always provides, as time follows after time.  I know, He is mine.  He is yours and He loves you, with all the love in the world.

He believes in you.

Tagged as: abandonment, dealing with rejection, divorce recovery, Encouragement, everlasting love, Father, Fathers love, God, golden thread, I have loved you, Inspiration, love, Mothers love, overcoming fear, the power of words, time after time