He turns bad into good and takes our adversities to weave a beautiful picture
When I was a little boy, my mother used to embroider a great deal. I would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She informed me that she was embroidering. I told her that it looked like a mess from where I was sitting, which was the underside. I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand.
She would smile at me, 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.”
I would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the light ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view. A few minutes would pass and then I would hear Mother’s voice say, “Son, come and sit on my knee.”
This I did, only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset. I could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.
Then Mother would say to me, “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 look at it from my side and you will see what I was doing.”
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.”
The above anecdote is taken from Embroidery (Author unknown). It is short and simple, but contains a wonderful message that helps to explain the questions and problems in life, especially spiritual ones, we often encounter.
For example, why does God allow me to suffer so much and bad things happen to me every now and then, even though I am not the agent or cause of these incidents? I am sure all of us have experienced such unfortunate situations at several points in our lives.
From accidents and natural disasters (storms, floods, forest fires, etc.) to those that man inflicts on others such as wars and criminal acts that cause us to lose those we love, our homes and personal property.
I, too, have been through several traumatic events and sufferings while growing up. I was born and raised during the Vietnam civil war, between people in the North and the South, due to differences in government and political ideologies. By the time the war ended in April 1975, I was 15 years old, but had witnessed many tragic scenes: bombs killing innocent people – especially women, children and the elderly – and destroying villages and cities.
I have seen mothers mourn their children, wives their husbands and the plight of orphans who no longer had parents. At least two million civilians and 1.3 million combatants died during the war that started in 1954.
In 1981, I had to flee my hometown and country. I had no choice but to leave behind everyone and everything dear to me, especially my parents, family and friends, to be free to answer God’s call for me to enter the priesthood.
The Communist authorities, who won the war and had taken over governing Vietnam, tried to stop me after discovering that a Catholic seminary had secretly accepted my application to study for the priesthood.
They forced me to enlist in their military in 1980 to fight against the Khmer Rouge, their rival communists in Cambodia, and it was highly unlikely I would have survived this war. So, I deserted the Vietnamese communist army and became a fugitive who was hunted like an animal.
There were times, while I was on the run from my pursuers that I silently lashed out at God, because He had called me to follow Him as a disciple of Jesus and I felt He had abandoned me. I asked why He chose and called me, only to leave me running for my life.
“God, could you see what you have done to me?” I complained to God. “I must endure persecutions because of my faith and because I did answer your call. I had to leave my home and family and must search for a way out of my own terrible situation, and it seems to me that there is no way out.”
The only way to survive this persecution, I concluded, was to escape from Vietnam. It can be said that from 1980 till the end of 1981 was the darkest time of my life. I lived completely in despair and in that great misery I pleaded many times with God to take my life, just as Tobias prayed to God in the Old Testament (Tb 3:1-6):
3:1. Then Tobias sighed, and began to pray with tears,
3:2. Saying, Thou art just, O Lord, and all thy judgments are just, and all thy ways mercy, and truth, and judgment:
3:3. And now, O Lord, think of me, and take not revenge of my sins, neither remember my offences, nor those of my parents.
3:4. For we have not obeyed thy commandments, therefore are we delivered to spoil and to captivity, and death, and are made a fable, and a reproach to all nations, amongst which thou hast scattered us.
3:5. And now, O Lord, great are thy judgments, because we have not done according to thy precepts, and have not walked sincerely before thee.
3:6. And now, O Lord, do with me according to thy will, and command my spirit to be received in peace: for it is better for me to die, than to live.
It is like the embroidered story at the start of this article. Seen from my side, I felt that everything was in chaos, deadlock and despair. I could not see a way out and became depressed and pessimistic during this dark time that had engulfed me. Life became meaningless and I did not want to live anymore.
I wanted to die peacefully so that I could be united with God in heaven. It was my sincere wish and great desire at that time because this would solve all my problems. Every night, with tears in my eyes, I prayed earnestly to God to take me away to Him.
I prayed this way for more than one month, only to get up each morning very much alive. God had remained silent and did not grant my wish.
For about 10 months I lived in such a terrible condition, hiding as a fugitive and constantly afraid the military police or local law officers would eventually catch up with me. My state of mind was dreadful that my family finally ordered me to flee Vietnam, as the situation had become quite dangerous for both me and them.
I didn’t want them to suffer the consequences of my actions, so I searched and eventually found someone who was gathering other people who were in a similar dire situation. They had a small boat for 51 of us, including children, to escape Vietnam.
At the first opportunity in darkness one night, these agents goaded us like cattle to a meeting point at the coast and onto the boat so small there was hardly space for anyone to lie down and rest.
We had no choice but to endure what was no guarantee that we would survive our desperate flight from Communist oppression.
The weather was no friend either because fierce rainstorms conspired to accompany us at sea. For five days high waves tossed our boat vigorously and when the sea was calm, the blazing sun burnt our skins.
It came to the point that although no one fell off the boat in trying conditions, we were losing hope of surviving because no land had come into view, and we were running out of food and water.
Everyone, Christian or not, had quietly made their peace with God before what must surely come: death. Then, just as suddenly as our hope was almost gone, as twilight took over from day, we spotted lights in the distance.
As we squinted our eyes, we could make out people. It was land and we guessed it was probably a village of people going about their evening activities.
To our amazement when we reached the “village” it was a camp for other Vietnamese refugees like us at Pulau Bidong in the eastern coast of Malaysia.
The joy of everyone on our little boat that we had reached such a place was indescribable and one of unbelief. We had escaped from the jaws of death at sea. For us, it was a great miracle. Whether one believes or not, we were all convince that surely it was the Hand of God that had been with us all along at every step of our ordeal, in Vietnam and especially in our journey to freedom in the treacherous sea.
Through our jubilation, I could imagine God admonishing us: “O men of little faith?” (Mt 8:26)
Continue to Part 2
