In the undoing...

These are the words that came to me today after having a conversation with another mum about the tougher seasons we have walked.

 

I had a very rare quiet moment on the car ride home from that conversation to reflect (ahm, mum of 3 boys!!), and I thought about those harder season (more than I'd like there to have been). The ones where I wasn't sure if I'd make it through... The ones that felt like the literal undoing of everything - all I've ever known, all I've ever believed. The ones where I felt at the end of myself, coming apart at the seams. You know the ones... I'm sure you do. Those lows are a part of our human experience here. 

 

To be completely truthful, I find myself in one of those seasons right now. But, I have hindsight which brings with it great wisdom.

 

A wisdom that has seen from experience that in the undoing... there is a remaking.

After each season of brokenness, I have seen God slowly but surely (and gently) remake me into something even more wonderful. And to be honest, something that makes me even more like Him. 

 

I have often said, it is the suffering I have experienced in life that has made me more like Christ than any mountaintop I've been on.

 

Here's what I've learned about the brokenness in seasons that feel like a complete undoing:

 

His glory, that gold, now clearly evident in the cracks... oozing through what we felt was a permanent break. Like the beautiful Japanese art of Kinstugi.

 

 

The beauty after the broken often takes time

You just gotta feel it to grieve it -ya know? It's no quick process. There's a messy in between, where you really don't look much like Christ at all (well, I know I didn't). You got big ugly feelings to deal with. Accompanied by not so nice thoughts sometimes. But I tell you what I know, stuffing those down and pretending they're not there is a sure way for it grow in you unaware.

 

God is okay with broken

He is. 

Truly.

Our natural instinct is to hide and run when we feel yucky, unworthy, completely and utterly broken. The first humans ever created showed us that. And look, for a time it may be hard to approach God in the undoing. There's a lot of pain. Especially when it comes to deep grief like loss. It can be hard to face Him in a less than admirable state. I've learnt though, that God is ok with broken. He'd prefer to be broken IN Him, rather than outside of Him. A potter can't really do anything with broken pottery that isn't put in His hands - you know? So... if you're broken, be broken IN and WITH Him. If you're depressed right now, be with Him in that way, honest, open... real. 

  

In the undoing ...

There is a remaking...

 

You just gotta go back to the Potter.