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Have you heard the commercial for cotton: the touch, the feel, the fabric of our life? I saw something the other day that gave a whole new meaning to the fabric of our life.

My small street was under reconstruction. The old pavement was pulled up and a layer of asphalt was poured down. This first layer, according to the town newsletter, was to take care of imperfections in the road and smooth out the roadbed.

A few days later I saw a truck pull up that had “Road Fabric” written on its side. My curiosity was raised, so I walked out on my deck to get a better look. Inside the back of the truck was roll after roll of literal road fabric, a geotextile fabric. This asphalt overlay is a moisture barrier in the pavement and increases the lifespan and load carrying capabilities. It reduces ruts and is only $250 for a 300 foot long roll (in case you are interested).

Soon, two machines pulled up. One looked like a truck with an apparatus low to the ground in the back. The other looked like a tractor with hooks at the end of arm extensions. Two men carried a roll of the road fabric on their shoulders. The roll was 12-15 feet wide, about half the width of the street. They hooked it onto the front of the “fabric tractor.” It reminded me of how we might hook up a roll of paper towels to a holder under a kitchen cabinet.

The truck with the strange apparatus squirted what looked like a mixture of tar and oil onto the street—yucky stuff. The truck drove ahead of the tractor, squirting this mixture on the roadbed. Then the two men each grabbed an end of the roll of fabric and laid the fabric onto the tar and oil mixture. The “fabric machine” advanced driving onto what had just been laid down. The road looked flawless.

To cover curves in the road, the fabric was cut into pie-like slices and overlapped as another layer was laid on the street. The two men cut any overlapped parts so that the road fabric was edge to edge and appeared seamless. Days later, a final coating of asphalt was put down and the result was road perfection.

The pristine beauty of the road was marred two days later when someone threw an orange peel onto the surface and someone else drove over it. But a day after that the street sweeper came and cleaned up the mess.

This whole road rebuilding process revealed five spiritual truths to me.

1. Jesus is the fabric of our lives. When we recognize that Jesus is the one true God and accept Him into our lives, our lives look flawless to the Heavenly Father. Jesus chose to cover the imperfections of our sinful nature by dying for our sins and rising from the dead. He’s alive today! Even though we still have the same sinful nature which causes us to be imperfect, He makes our lives look flawless to the Heavenly Father. We are perfect in God’s eyes.
2. The carelessly tossed orange peel was a visual reminder of sin. We are perfect in God’s eyes. But we sin. We’re human. When this happens, we are not to take it lightly. We are to confess this. “But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”(1 John 1:9).  If we do this, it’s as if a street sweeper has removed the sin, and our lives are cleaned up once again. Jesus takes care and effort to continue to cover us as we go down the road of life.
3. Every once in a while yucky stuff like the tar and oil mixture is squirted into our lives. It’s not that we did anything wrong. We didn’t plan for it, but it is there. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” (Romans 8:28). Keep looking to Jesus and seeking His will when the unexpected happens.
4. Those curves in the road, where the workers cut the overlapping fabric edge-to-edge remind me of staff changes we’ve had at the highest level. I want to assure you that from our founder to the two former CEOs to our next CEO, Stonecroft will remain fixed on the mission God has called us to: bringing others into His kingdom, prayer, discipling and proclaiming the Gospel through Stonecroft Bible Studies, and developing leaders. Edge to edge, the process will continue to be seamless.
5. Lastly, the important process of laying down the road fabric was accomplished by a four-person team—one drove the fabric tractor, one drove the tar truck, and two worked with the road fabric so it could be laid on the street. The spiritual reminder was that God has made us a team—the Home Office Staff, the Field Directors, the Board of Directors, and you our highly valued volunteers. “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love”(Ephesians 4:16).

May we all reflect Jesus as the fabric of our lives so that others will come to know Him.