Abundant Rain预览

Unravel Me

When I was growing up, my mom was always crocheting something. She made blankets, hot pad holders, coasters—all kinds of things. She loved to sit in her favorite pale blue chair with a perfect ball of yarn beside her and move her needle with quickness and precision.

As good as she was, inevitably, she would sometimes make a mistake. Some mistakes were easy to fix. But sometimes, the mistake was so big that she would have to rip out all of her stitches and start over again. She would pull and unravel and pull and unravel until all that was left of what she created was a messy clump of yarn beside her.

Here is what I observed. Even though the yarn was used and it was no longer in its perfect original form, she never threw the yarn away.

It was still useable.

Some of us are messy piles of yarn. We are no longer crisp, straight from the factory, and rolled into perfect balls. We have been used. We have been woven by life's circumstances into things that are crooked or off-center or unpleasant to look at. 

The Creator, the One who holds the needle that fashioned us together, had a plan for what we would look like when we were completed. Things happened, and mistakes were made, and we no longer resemble the intended pattern. 

He doesn't want to throw us away.

He needs to start over.

If you feel like you have made a mess of things or if you feel like you have made too many mistakes and you can't be fixed, know and believe that you are still useable to your Creator—the master weaver of our lives.

Once you dedicate yourself to Christ, you become a new creation. The old one is gone and the new is here! The truth is that you will continue to make mistakes. You will continue to need to present yourself to God and ask him to renew you. However, we are also told that, thankfully, his mercies are new every morning.

Present yourself to him as you are—flaws and all. Ask him to pull on the threads of your heart. Ask him to weave you into something beautiful. Declare that you are ready to be pulled apart and put back together again.

Let him transform you from a mess into a masterpiece.

Unravel your heart and turn it into his heart.

Going to the Well Journal Prompt

For this exercise, do me a favor and go and get your favorite blanket, throw, or quilt. As you look at the blanket, imagine that your blanket represents your life. Every piece of thread is a different experience, and they were all woven together to create what you now hold in your hand. Are there threads or even whole sections of your life blanket that you wish could be removed? As you reflect today, write down those things that you wish you could unravel, subtract, or eliminate from your past.

Drinking from the Living Water

Heavenly Father, I know that there are things in my life that have been done by me or to me that I wish could be undone. God, I ask that you pull on those strings in my life that need to be unraveled. I hand every part of my life to you. I ask that you take the messy me and turn me into a masterpiece. I pray Isaiah 64:8 over myself right now: "But now O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; and we are the work of your hand." Mold me into what you want me to be. In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.