My friend Bea!
Does'nt reading, just take your mind so many places? While reading the book of Hebrews; I was reminded of a Great Tapestry!
The creation of a tapestry is much like that of a painting, the unique color and texture that is used by the weaver to persuade the visual story, just waiting out of sight, to come into view, is much like that of a painter with an empty canvas.
Tapestries have been used since at least Hellenistic times. Some being preserved as far back as the 3rd century BC. These works of art were used to tell many a life story. Hanging on walls for warmth and remembrance!
Each individual thread picked for it’s color & shape, placed in the exact position, destined to ultimately bring a successful completion to the finished work!
I believe our life story ‘s, grow and build in resemblance to these tapestries!
Beatrice Likalama is a recent gift to my life, another gold tread! We met in Dec. 2008! Referred to me by a friend, she applied for work here at Tumaini Children‘s Center!
With 11 infants & toddlers, 2 exhausted preteen daughters and one exasperated husband, at home. I found myself with a couple day stay at a Kenyan hospital!
Treated basically for, exhaustion & sever dehydration, I was ready to repent and seek help!
God is so good! All the time! ( Psalm 103 ) Bea was willing to work for what we were offering and did not back away even after I explained the continuous, repetitive work of dishes, diapers and household cleaning we were expecting of someone willing to help us!
I could not imagine anyone wanting to do what my heart was compelling me to do, in the day to day care of these wonderful, needy, orphaned children!
God tells us that pride comes before a fall and I had definitely fallen, to the end of my physical self!
I could describe Bea to you, as my housekeeper, because we now have 4 women who work with us under her in the house but truthfully she has become, so much more! She is my dearest friend & partner in faith!
Bea is a Pastor’s wife, her & her husband Francise, Pastor a Calvary Baptist Church here in Eldoret Kenya! Bea is a Mother of mothers ( something we will talk about in the future)! She gathers and guides the Mamas in her church and where ever she finds them.
Each mama young & old are another opportunity for Bea to spend day & night hrs helping them to see the work of God in their lives! Counseling, encouraging, exhorting, loving with the unlimited love of Christ, she tries to lead them to a closer walk with their Lord !
Shedding care filled tears for all mamas, Bea and I join in prayer and fasting once a week! What a honor it is to call her my friend and sister in Jesus Christ!
She said to me just this last week “ Mama Phyllis, Do you know, God loves Mamas! Mamas were those who tenderly went with Jesus’ body to the tomb, they got to see him first, after He was risen!” Oh how he loves us!!!!
Our Father God is not only a Master Painter but a Master Weaver as well, of course, being the Master of the Universe all art flows from Him!
From the beginning of my walk with Him, God has Graced me with great mothers of faith, each one a golden thread woven with precision in and through my life, Bea being the most recent!
There have been so many before her! I thought about listing all of you but it would take much more space than I have here!
I hope & pray that you know who you are and that all of you share this life with me!
Never forgetting the specific thread of faith, courage, exhortation, unlimited love of Christ, God used you to weave into my life, forever changing my story, for eternity!
I realize, I have known the same kind of Hero’s, described in Hebrew’s 11 !
So many wonderful mothers, young and not so young who have mothered me in their Spirit of Faith!
Remember when; we were talking about the artistic force that brings life’s breath to our art? Well, it begins with God and then He brings in a great collaboration of His faithful!
I hope you will read all of Hebrews 11 for the 1st time or the 100th! God left the door open for many more Hero’s of Faith to stand on these shoulders! My prayer is that you will know some and become some!
The end of this scripture says, (Hebrews 11: 40 ) “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.’’
Woven together like threads of a great Tapestry. God knows that it will take us all, to bring about what He desires for each of us and this world, Christ’s perfection!
Philippians 3: 12 “ Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”
We are God’s soil, out of our motherhood grows the fruit of all the promises of God through Christ!
Pressing on together, let us join Hearts and Spirits across time & continents to continue this most important mastery of motherhood!
A desire for excellence opens Heaven’s gates for us! Not a pride for perfectionism but a true desire to see our lives take on the excellence of our king!
Loving the Father, Phyllis Leister
