Weaving in Shadow

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 14, 1913

Weaving in Shadow

In one of the famous lace-shops of Brussels there are certain retired rooms devoted to the weaving of the finest and most delicate lace patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for the light from one small window falling directly upon the pattern. There is only one lace-maker in the room, and she sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the thread she is weaving. “Thus,” you are told by your guide, “do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker is in the dark and only her pattern is in the light.”

Does not the same beautiful and mysterious result appear in work of any kind, when surrounding shadows compel the toiler to fix his attention solely upon the task in hand—the task upon which falls the concentrated light of life? When a soul finds itself shut in by disappointments, trials, bereavements, disciplines, or physical limitations to its divinely appointed task, the one thing it is best fitted to do or teach in this world, how marvelously the pattern is wrought! What new power and beauty appear in both work and character! That one small window through which falls the light of heaven full upon our task is, how often, the essential condition of highest achievement!—The Continent.