He Is the Master Weaver

With wrapping paper and discarded bows littering the floor, our two young boys happily preferred playing with the boxes to the new toys. Ben, with a big smile, handed over one last present to me. “2015 Day Planner” was written across the front of the spiral-bound notebook. I gave my husband a quizzical look as I’m not exactly known for my structured, organized habits: “You want me to write appointments down or something?”

“Babe, I know how much you love to write and record memories for our family; what if you did it in this planner? So, no, not for appointments or schedules but for writing the story of our family, day by day.”

Instantly, tears welled up in my eyes. Six years of being married and I had never felt more seen or known. And still, every year, day by day, I record the mundane (tacos for dinner!) next to the extraordinary (we moved back to our home state!) moments of our family’s story.

I have loved to write since figuring out how to form letters on a page, and that love was still going strong in 2015 as a college writing professor. My heart was intent on making that work my lifelong career. But sometime in 2020, teaching began to feel like putting on a favorite pair of jeans only to discover they didn’t fit anymore. As much as I tugged and wrestled to get them on, I finally conceded that they didn’t fit. So I resigned.

While confident that stepping out of the classroom was my next right thing, I felt adrift without the security of knowing what was next. For the first time in 15 years, I was unsure of my calling, how I should invest my life, or what my life’s work was supposed to be.

How had all that happened over the past fifteen years led me to this point? Loving words and writing from an early age. Majoring in English–twice. Teaching for over a decade. Hauling boxes of journals with me through numerous moves. Pregnancy and baby years filled with joy but also immense grief. Walking through a hard, long season of loneliness far away from our support system. Writing a blog that helped me connect with others as we walked under the weight of those difficulties. Uprooting our whole life, only for it to feel like a miserable failure. A decade’s worth of unprocessed grief plunging me into a season of bitterly hard depression. Still always coming back to writing as my lifeline, as the thread that kept me hanging on. “God, what are we going to do with all this?” I asked, “And where do we go from here?”

If I were to believe the psalmist’s words that God “created my inmost being . . . knit me together in my mother’s womb . . . [and] all the days ordained for me were written in [his]book before one of them came to be” (Ps. 139: 13, 16 NIV); if what was true of Esther’s life being “for such a time as this” could also be said of mine (Est. 4:14 NIV); if I was going to stake my life on Paul’s reminder that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10), then I had to trust that one day, somehow I would see the pieces for what they were, and I would once again walk confidently forward with vision and purpose in alignment with God’s.

2022 was the year for this new vision to come into sharp focus. It’s as if I’ve turned the quilt of my life over and can see this masterful design God has been weaving all along. The love for writing, the pain and difficulties, the failures and crazy joys? All of it led me to a way to help others learn how to write their own stories of hope and healing through journaling. But here’s the truth. There was no magic formula to make this vision appear. If there was a formula, it was waiting (a whole lot of it), trusting (even against impossible odds), and moving when I felt the Spirit’s leading (and seeing most of that in retrospect).

Each piece, each twist and turn, each seeming misalignment along the way, paved the path to now. Even when I didn’t know where it was all leading, God did. He had the whole course in view, and while my trust was imperfect, my joy has been magnified a thousandfold as I realize his faithfulness to bring me here, to this place.

If you’re muddling through an in-between season and have no idea how God is going to create beauty and give you purpose out of the threads you’re holding, can you hang on? I don’t know when. And I don’t know how. But I do know that we serve an incredibly precise, specific God who is a masterful weaver. And even though your vision might be limited, his is not. He’s got your whole world, your whole life, your whole purpose in his hands. One day all these thread-like pieces and knotted-up difficulties will come together in a beautiful tapestry that will show you the calling he’s had on your life all along. Oh, and hey, maybe journal about it along the way? I’m here to tell you that it will make the picture come alive in color.

Allison Byxbe is a writer, Ann Voskamp intern, editor, and journaling instructor from South Carolina. A lover of the beach, the stars, and the lattes her husband makes, her favorite things to write about are motherhood, special needs parenting, mental health, grief, and faith. You can connect with her over at Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy, Facebook, and Instagram.