That doesn't look like much...yet.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to look at both sides of a finished piece of needlepoint or cross-stitch before it’s framed or attached to a pillow, you’d see something fascinating. As orderly and perfect as the front side is, the back is a total mess of jumble and confusion. If someone displayed the reverse side, you’d think it was a joke (or modern art, maybe) because there’s no beauty or organization to it at all.

However, as any needleworker knows, every single piece of the back is necessary and vital to the front turning out properly. Still, even the most skilled needleworkers can’t discern the front’s design by only looking at the back. And although the back exists to serve the front and therefore is totally dependent on the front for its particular mess, you can no more say the back exists because of the front than you can say the front exists because of the back. They both co-exist together and are intricately interdependent. Yet despite this close connection, you normally only see the back temporarily during construction, whereas the front goes on display forever.

What’s so very fascinating to me is the absurdly naïve expectation we all have that the strands we see so vividly in this life would constitute the front of God’s eternal art project.