I was recently overcome with joy when I thought about how amazing our customers, followers, friends and Wellington Toffee family are. The faces of those past and currently involved with Wellington and the organizations and individuals we support came into focus in my mind’s eye and I visualized it as a finely formed tapestry. Each thread represents a life of an individual woven together intricately in time to create a vivid picture of our current collective work.
As I think back each thread began being intertwined carefully, and with purpose, developing into an ongoing weave with an ever-expanding loom as life unfolds. I can’t pinpoint a specific time in life when I noticed this God given compassion within me, maybe it always existed? The threads become layer upon layer grouped together to create an exciting and expanding view.
One memorable layer was formed during a summer spent in the Chicago suburbs while I earned spending money helping with tasks around my Aunt Dorothy’s house. Aunt Dorothy was an excellent artist and had thousands of paintings that she had completed throughout the years. At the end of my summer assignment, Aunt Dorothy gave me my final payment and took me to her basement where she had hundreds of paintings. She told me to pick one out and take it with me! It was a daunting task, since each one was so incredibly different and had its own appeal. I remember asking her which one was her favorite. Her answer is as clear to me today as it was that day. “All of them,” she said with great pride and a big smile.
I’m blessed to see this picture in my mind and to see it continue to expand. How will you be part of this ongoing tapestry as we make an impact on the world we live in and continue to weave the threads of our lives together to form this artwork that I believe, with a hint of bias, is our Creator’s favorite?
By the way, when it came time to select my painting I had narrowed it down to two. One, a large canvas of ocean spray and raging waves and the second - and my selection, a colorful village spread out in an expansive valley. I could picture my Aunt, grandmother and generations before living life, forming the layers of their expanding tapestry in this village one thread at a time.