Coat of Many Colors

          "And I couldn't understand it

For I felt I was rich

And I told them of the love

My momma sewed in every stitch

And I told them all the story

Momma told me while she sewed

And how my coat of many colors

Was worth more than all their clothes

But they didn't understand it

And I tried to make them see

That one is only poor

  Only if they choose to be

  Now I know we had no money

  But I was rich as I could be

  In my coat of many colors

  My momma made for me"

  ("Coat of Many Colors", by Dolly Parton)

Do you ever think you're just not good enough to be used by God?

Are there times when you are reminded of your many mistakes and failures, and you just get overwhelmed with the sense that there is no way that God could want anything to do with you, let alone actually want to use you in His kingdom?

I feel that way sometimes.  I think we all do.

In Psalm 139 it says, "you knit me together in my mother's womb...I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  I am reminded that God was the one who put me together as I was being created.  Even before I was visible as a child in my mother's womb, God could see me and knew what I would look like.  This same psalm even says that God knew all the days of my life, that he ordained them, all while I was being formed in the womb.

One of the many reasons that God so wonderfully and richly loves every single one of us is that He is the one who created us.  He wasn't just involved - He did it all.  I think of God knitting together this amazing tapestry that will be our life, full of intricate design, pattern, and color.  A beautiful image of the life that He has planned for us, complete with all the amazing twists and turns that make life rich and full.

Oh, but what we do with that beautiful tapestry...

We drag it through the mud.  We rip and tear it.  We take it places it was never intended to go.  In seemingly no time at all, God's beautiful work of art is nothing more than a filthy rag.

But, what if God never stops knitting?  What if the whole time we are stumbling about creating rips and holes, God is stitching and sewing those holes closed, repairing the damage we are doing.  What if each stitch is sewn in love, restoring His beloved tapestry to wholeness again? 

Not that God removes all evidence of our mistakes.  The point is not to pretend we've never stumbled or walked through the valley.  Instead, God redeems those dark times, and the lovingly stitched repairs serve to forever remind us of His love and goodness towards us.   Even better, they allow us to relate to others who have experienced similar scars.

How did Thomas come to believe that the resurrected Jesus was actually the Jesus he had followed and ministered with?  By the holes in Jesus' hands and feet.  Did you ever think that God could have taken those horrible scars away, and yet, it was by those marks that the resurrected Jesus was revealed.

The apostle Paul said, "if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation."  You and I don't have to continue to be the old person we once were.  God, through Jesus Christ, is restoring, redeeming, making new.  We are His "Coat of Many Colors," each healing stitch sewn in love.