The Truth About Unraveling Your Life

I sit in the windowed nook. Humbled in this rare, quiet kitchen. Staring into open spaces…

Calendar for the day filled with a coffee dates, racing two cities away, helping a friend, visiting with a family we are building relationship with.

And yet, I ex-hail naturally. Her picture still taped to our refrigerator.

Open spaces unravel me, as I taste and feel, look deep into His heart that stills me. Here in this nook, in the country.

Sadly…

• Most days? Eyes dart and pass me.
• Many times? I miss this quiet, am eluded to this stillness.
• Too often? Joy is robbed from me like a thief in the night I don’t see coming.

I look into my husband’s eyes on a date last evening. Really look. Past the surface, into deeper spaces. Trusting His heart, hearing more than words have told me.

We are one. Here in this place of seeing and being seen. Knowing and being known.

Yet, how often in the past, have I spent time talking, without really looking into the heart of the ones that sit before me?

My older children race and pass; college, work, the gym. I see their books, and backpacks, float a goodbye that might race after them as they head out the door…

Yet, when was the last time we stopped and really looked into others hearts, embraced those we love, letting down every wall, and thanking them for who they are?

The internet has blown up lately; politics, world events, information we take in like drug addicts who need another fix…

Solve this surgery induced menopause, a family member’s diagnosis, listening to the latest “man of God” telling what’s on his heart for the nation…

Information everywhere vying for our attention.

But, when was the last time we really went inside His throne room, looked and knew His very heart, listened for ourselves, what He wants next in a world simply filled…

With more information?

My man of two dozen years secretly plans an Anniversary weekend without me knowing it; took off work, scheduled a babysitter, made arrangements, tickets, a hotel and everything…

At this conference they talk about different tiers of vulnerability;

• The first – Receiving and sharing nothing…A walled existence.
• The second – Sharing information, but only facts.
• The third – Sharing thoughts and opinions.
• The fourth – Sharing our hearts, talking about our feelings.
• The last – Really opening up, vulnerably, and authentically giving all we are, letting people into our hearts, and sharing transparently.

And I hear it as a buzz word all around me, authenticity. A word that calls and compels, secretly appealing to us. Yet, why do we too often, hesitate to live it?

Isn’t authenticity what makes people march, voices blog, people study deeper thoughts like Philosophy and Psychology?

Isn’t authenticity the very heart of God? See and be seen? Know and be known? Share fully our hearts, taking down every wall dividing us?

And yet, how many have been hurt, laid barren, desolate because we gave too much to the wrong person? So we hide in knowledge, opinions, or projections?

Still vulnerability and authenticity, the unraveled life, will always bring peace and purpose.

And what if we are like a ball of thread? The more we strive, tug, pull, and fight to unwind ourselves, the more disastrous we become in the end?

And what if letting go is the secret?

Giving our balls of thread to the One who made us, the answer to our wholeness, the path that leads us to all we are and were created for?

For isn’t that the place He has called us…Authentic before His very heart? 

And isn’t that what each of us want; rest, abandonment, a willing trust of a Savior who can take our crooked path, and make us straight again?

I scan the horizon in the quietness of my nook, remembering His heart is good and His ways can always be trusted…

Staring into open spaces; not just to see, but really look, breathe, and thank Him that in the low places there is peace.

Peace that surpasses understanding, overwhelms us as we let Him unravel us, breathing and trusting that He is for us, with us, in us, and carrying us by His Spirit…

• Like a river that doesn’t resist it’s direction.
• Like a kite flowing with the forces of heaven.
• Like a bird guiding where the wind might carry it…

So are we, when we trust Him.

I hear tiny feet above me. Light has made it’s way into the kitchen. Soon enough, children will be bustling down to fill their empty stomachs…

And yet I pray, I won’t teach my children racing and running…But instead, what it looks like, this unraveling, to walk in faith and authenticity…

Trusting Him enough to not live a life of striving.

May those around us see a people rooted in His strength, living from a place of deeper authenticity, walking in transparency and humility.

Accepting whatever God might bring us…

Going deeper.

Nothing hidden in knowledge or information. Not settling for thoughts and opinions, ideas, or even experiences….

But unraveled by His grace, vulnerable, open to everything He wants to do in us.

Help us stop and really see today, oh God.

Let us hear others hearts, look into people eyes, share from the depths of who we are, whether it be to a cashier, band teller, a parent, or a student.

The sun breaks over the horizon this morning, while I challenge us all to lay down our striving, relax into His love, open up to His gentle unraveling.

There is so much around us. Won’t we quiet our souls and listen? Really see and know His beauty? Won’t we stop and thank Him for this breathe we have been given…

Life is too short. Won’t we know whose we are, loving authentically. Living for a purpose other than ourselves…

The rivers don’t fight for purpose. So, why should we? 

God knows what we are made for. Let’s surrender to His unraveling…