The Undoing...

        Have you ever had the moment in your life when you just felt so undone...when your whole world seems upside down and your heart may alternate between crying out and surrendering everything? I believe we have all felt this at one time or another...I call this the undoing. 

       When I first became a mom, I had such dreams and hopes for my girls. I dreamt of what jobs they would have, who they would fall in love with, and many other things....all good and beautiful things. I prayed for their hearts to fall deeply in love with their King and for every chain and bondage to be broken. I did what I thought would help them along this journey of life to give them courage, a strong foundation, and a sense of family. And I thought that this would seal the deal if you will, for them to turn out exactly as I had dreamt they would...but I chose to forget about free-will. 

            This is where the undoing comes in...the undoing of my dreams...my plans...even my prayers. And total and complete surrender have to happen. I will be honest....it is painful for me. Painful to the point that many times I have been prostrate on the ground beside my bed with tears pouring down and my heart pounding furiously and my hands pounding the ground begging God to intervene. Letting go has been terribly, terribly painful for me...it has given me a tiny insight into what it must be like for my Heavenly Father to watch so many of His beloved children run away from Him. How His heart must ache for them!

        When you watch your children chose a path that is different than the one you prayed for....your heart hurts. You want desperately to stop them from making that bad choice or taking that wrong path or linking arms with that person that will only bring hurt to their heart. You want to yell and scream and beg them to stop. You want to wrap your arms around them and soak up all the hurt and anger they feel and replace it with the love you have for them but instead all you can do is open your hands...each finger spread out long and completely surrender them to Jesus..,..and it is SO hard. 

       As our children grow they make their own choices. They write their own story...and that is exactly what they need to do. None of them should be forced to walk the story that WE have written for them. This is something I still have so much to learn about....but I am surrendered to the undoing. I will cry more tears. I will at times, lie flat on the floor and ask God to forgive them because they do not know what they are doing....they don't understand their actions have such big spiritual implications. They don't understand fully what the enemy is doing to distract them and blind them so that they no longer hear or see truth clearly. So just like the prophets of old, we pray for our children. We ask God to forgive them and we battle on their behalf when they can't. We cover them in prayer and raise our sword...the Word of God...in battle every single day for them. And we surrender to the undoing in our life. We learn to accept....even welcome....the undoing. Knowing that God's plan and purpose for our children never changes. Knowing that in the undoing....comes beauty. It is in the trusting of our Saviors heart that we rest in even as the undoing causes pain and hurt....which brings beautiful growth. In us. In our children. This undoing....it is a GOOD thing. It is a kind thing from a loving God.
       Most likely you are right in the middle of some form of undoing in your life even now....maybe your marriage is falling apart, your children are walking a road you wish  they wouldn't, maybe you are just tired because it feels like the undoing has been going on now forever....simply....forever....and you are just tired. Dear friend....beauty is here....right in the middle of all this undoing. Beauty is rising from the ashes of this undoing....and soon....the beauty that is going to burst forth from all this undoing is going to leave you breathless and in wonder of how God can take such pain...such hurt....such.....UNDOING....and all the time was creating a beauty that we cannot even fathom right now....but we trust that it is there....because we trust our King.