Undoing

Undoing: the process of allowing yourself to be undone.

This was the word I got at the beginning of the year. I remember being completely exhausted from 2019 and I was so ready to start the new year. I was expecting my word for the year to be inspiring and encouraging like “courage” or “joy” or something exciting. When I got “undone” I was kinda like uh... God, what?

The dictionary definition of undone is this: a person's ruin or downfall. So you can imagine the shock I had after getting this word.

Like what does that even mean. My first year out of school and instead of “carpe diem” I got undoing. It took me a second to accept it. I sat in confusion like, God 2019 was rough, I was completely worn out and ready for change and joy and instead, I was told that this year would be a “process of allowing myself to be undone.” This year would be my downfall/ruin. HA! I had such a warped idea of downfall - to me it meant demolished, destroyed. But in our greatest downfall, God shows his devotion. Whilst we're in the valley God shows his virtue.

In that moment I realised there was no way I was able to find joy and courage without dealing with the despair and fear, and this would be the process of allowing the dust to be shaken out of the rug, allowing the layers of my heart to be pulled back, allowing God to unwind me until I’m totally undone.

During worship, I was singing my own song when these words kinda just left my mouth "Won't you bring it all back up again everything that we've been hiding"

Wow. How many of us can say that we're hiding something, hiding our pain, hiding our mistakes, hiding who we truly are? And I believe the undoing is where God begins to reveal what we've been hiding in the crevices of our heart. He doesn't do this to expose or rebuke, he reveals so that he can begin to heal. God cannot heal what you hide.

Proverbs 28:13

He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

Come on! I don't serve a God who slaps a bandaid on it and calls it a day.

How many of us do that with our hurt, we put a bandaid on it and never deal with the underlying issue?

(Fun fact: bandaids actually slow the healing process and can cause infection.)

I'd done that for too long, my bandaid was fake smiles and insincere forgiveness. My band-aid was studying until I forgot about the pain, my band-aid was little quotes from Pinterest, my band-aid was literally anything to help me avoid the wound. I write this with a heavy heart because I know there are people out there doing the same thing, trying to keep it all together, plastering their wounds with temporary fixes that actually prolong the healing process. But the goodness of God looks at us covered in band-aids and asks us to surrender it to him. And as we begin to let go and fall apart this is what God does:

Psalm 119:105-112

Everything’s falling apart on me, God;

put me together again with your Word.

Festoon me with your finest sayings, God;

teach me your holy rules.

Oh, this is getting good -

Come on! I serve a God who PUTS ME BACK TOGETHER, piece by piece.

But listen, not by our might, or our power, BUT by his word.

"Festoon" - a garland, or a wreath of flowers. Garlands are graceful.

So, He gracefully teaches us, he gracefully wraps us with his word. I serve a graceful God, he does not condemn or attack, he gracefully begins to dress our wounds and loves us back together.