The day my world came undone is the day I truly became free!

They say when something unravels it doesn’t happen all at once but it is a continuance of a long-term problem. That the threads have slowly been unraveling for long periods of time.

This seems true if you perhaps had the time to watch anything slowly come undone. The trouble is that you rarely know something is coming undone until the boom is echoing off the walls from the explosion and the debris of whatever came undone starts to settle once more.

In one spontaneous act of visceral combustion everything within rattling distance is loosed free from its moorings and whatever is in the way is either expelled or becomes projectile in the process.

This is what happens to the human heart when it begins the slow and slippery slide into despair.

Despair is the killer of dreams, the resurrection of nightmares

We don’t always see when our heart begins to unravel. This is one of the greatest ploys of the enemy we face by far. Tragically until it all goes boom and we’re left with bits and pieces splattered everywhere do we even realize that we have come completely undone.

We begin the path to greatness with lofty aspirations of grandeur. The light of our pathway seems bright and illuminated with brilliant rays of effervesce light.

Rarely do we see the light slowly beginning to flicker and fade like dust shimmering across dusty moonlit trails. So full of ideas and dreams it seems as if nothing is unreachable, no goal unattainable, no idea unstoppable.

Yet, a word, a thought, an unwanted action slowly throws doubt into the ring of light like sparkling fairies tripping through our light on fairy dust wings. Illuminating the dimming rays of our dreamy aspirations. Before we know what’s happening the light starts slowly twinkling, fading to a dust laden gloom of doubt, fear and despair.

Tenaciously we hang on convinced we are unshakable, unstoppable and even safe. We tell ourselves we are above the tides that turn other men’s hearts. After all we are strong, we are brave, we are fearless.

Marching steadily like the sands trickling through the hour-glass of time it is builds to a climatic end of the hour, warning, screaming danger is near. We plod on convinced that we will survive the boom, overcome the rush and defeat the elephant in the room barreling toward us with unprecedented speed.

Not knowing this is to be the last hour, the death bell has rung, our dream has shattered and died. As we wipe away the tear-stained edges of dirt trickling down our face. We look on in utter despair at what could have been, what should have been, what now seems lost forever. With a shuddering breath of dismay we cry out why, only to hear silence more deafening than any blast could ever be and we hang our head and weep.

This is where I have found myself of late.

What brought about such despair you might wonder?

I have everything I could ever dream of. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful family. A lovely home, a good job and most importantly I have Jesus.

So what seems to be my problem?

As anyone who writes can tell you there are those moments that you go through that push you to almost hopeless despair. Writers have the uncanny ability to spill it all out on paper and thus release the pressure before the boom.

I have found myself unable to write anything lately. I look upon the page and it remains a blank canvas. Oh I have ideas and thoughts and words, Oh so many words but they’re bottled up inside me like air bubbles trapped in a bottle. They wait for that blessed release that never comes.

I wonder at times, is it the Lord’s doing or my own? Have I brought this night of the dark lands of endless paper and empty ink pens upon myself?

Am I tied to the moorings of my own lofty dreams of grandeur and so the Lord says to me; “be still until you know that I am God?”

Am I so injected with my own ideas of self, so saturated with my sin that I cannot and will not be used for God because His glory cannot be shared with the sin nature so clear within me?

I’ve been reading in Daniel 4 of King Nebuchadnezzar and how he was lifted up in his pride. Here was a brilliant King, warrior, a conqueror who had everything one could imagine. His one problem, he thought that he had built all that kingdom by himself. I read that God had warned him in a dream that if he didn’t get a reality check that his pride was going to get the Kingdom rent from him.

Not only would he lose his kingdom he would also lose his heart as well, quite literally matter of fact and become like a beast, eating grass as if he were nothing more than cattle roaming the hillsides. All because he refused to acknowledge God had in fact given him the ability to get all that he had.

Somehow I think he missed God’s point and Nebuchadnezzar’s entire world upended in total chaos in just one hour.

Talk about it coming undone at the seams.

I can’t imagine what that must have been like for him nor do I want to imagine it either. Too me it is the greatest example of coming apart at the seams and then wonder of wonders, living to tell about it. Which Nebuchadnezzar did. When he finally came to himself he said God is God and I’m not robbing Him of His Glory anymore.

A dumb beast became a very wise man…

There is one thing I do know, God is God and I don’t want His job and if He says I’m done, well then reckon I’m done, I won’t argue about it.

I just feel so unsettled, lost as if I’m missing the greater picture of all that He wants me to see, who He has called me to be.

The scripture says that

Proverbs 13:12 KJV Hope deferred maketh the heart-sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. 

For now I have to believe that when God is ready He will use me for His Glory, His way, in His time…

I have to guard my heart  because He knows the plans that He has for me and they are so much greater than anything I could dream up anyway…

My advice to any of you feeling what I am feeling is just trust the Lord, He knows what He’s doing and don’t let the enemy tell you otherwise. It’s because of the enemy we come undone anyway. The sin in your life, God is going to deal with, so let Him. He has to because He is God and He is Holy. Even then He deals with it because He loves us, so I tell myself don’t fret, don’t faint, don’t falter, this is for your good.

The enemies whole purpose is to get you off of your purpose. Don’t give him the satisfaction !

Be still and know He is God Psalms 46:10

I think maybe God’s entire point is that we come completely undone so that He can do what He wants to do in us and the only way He can do that is to unravel us.

Nebuchadnezzar had an ego problem, he felt that he had done it all by himself, that he deserved all the glory, the credit, the applause. By the time God was finished with him he knew clearly that God rules in the Kingdom of men. Whatever lofty ideas of grandeur he had about himself died out there on the hillside with all that cattle chow he munched on for seven years.

I think I’ll take my cue from his lesson and allow God to do as He wills in my life and should that mean unraveling me at the seams then it’s all part of the purpose and plan He has for me.

For the moment my despair is in check and my pen still poised to write and when He calls I will answer yes, Lord as You will.

 

I’m hid with Christ!

Shawn

You may have notice the picture of the hotels accompanying the post. One is the Flagship Hotel that once stood over Galveston Island jetting out over the water on a pier. She was destroyed after a series of hurricanes swept through the island. Hurricane Rita started the process of her undoing and then Ike finished her off. The other is the after picture of what used to be the pier as it is in Galveston today. While she no longer functions as a Hotel and doesn’t resemble anything of her former glory, she has a purpose. She now brings many families loads of fun and family time. Someone had a dream and through lots of planning, setbacks and determination the Pier now functions for people of all ages to enjoy.

Even when everything comes undone beneath all the rubble lies a tiny seed, a dream where once again a vision will begin to grow causing despair to lay smothered in hope~