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Life Is the Backside Of Embroidery by Aasfa Siddiqui

Aasfa Siddiqui

I’ve been thinking about it lately

life feels like the backside of embroidery.

All I see are the knots,

threads pulling in opposite directions,

lines crossing with no pattern,

like someone stitched it blindfolded.

But then

flip it.

Turn it over.

And there it is.

The picture you never thought was forming

flowers blooming where only knots existed,

Maybe that’s just my side of the cloth.

Maybe God sees the other.

The one I’m not allowed to touch yet.

The side where these very knots

hold the picture together.

Maybe heartbreak is just a red thread

meant to shape the outline of something larger.

Maybe loneliness is a dark patch

that gives contrast to all the light.

Maybe even the useless stitches,

the ones we regret,

add texture,

depth,

weight.

When the fabric is turned,

perhaps at the very end,

we’ll see it

every knot holding the shape,

every crooked line

part of the symmetry.

The mess will finally look like meaning,

and the backside will make sense

everything we called chaos

will glow with perfect order.

Faith

isn’t about seeing the image at all,

but walking through the confusion,

believing that nothing here is wasted.

That even the ugliest loops

are part of a beauty

I can’t see from this side.

And so

I stop trying to untangle everything.

I let the threads dangle where they want.

I trust that someone’s hands

gentler than mine

know what they’re weaving.

And if being lost in these tangle

still means I’m stitched into His design,

then let me remain here

knotted, confused,

but never outside the pattern.

So yes,

life is the backside of embroidery,

and God is the One who sees the picture.

We are just the threads

moving in loops,

crossing over one another,

wondering why it hurts,

never knowing we’ve been part of beauty

all along.

Until then,

we keep living in the knots,

trusting the Weaver.

Because life, as we know it,

is never the front side.

It’s the backside

More from Aasfa Siddiqui ↓

• @readwithshifa on Instagram
• @readwithshifa on Substack

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