I’ve been quiet around here lately.
It’s not because I don’t have any words, I do. A lot of them really. It’s just that they haven’t found their way out of my heart yet.
Also, it’s been a really hard few weeks.
I still haven’t learned exactly how to share the hard without sharing my children’s stories. In the very beginning of our journey, I shared a lot. Probably too much. As I grew as their mama and learned more and more about adoption along the way, I realized their story wasn’t mine to share.
I think you know me by now. But I never want this space we’ve cultivated together to become too pretty or too perfect. Full of hope? Always. But I’m learning a lot about what it means to sit in the middle. The middle of the broken, not yet and the healed, promised fulfilled. I’ve felt that so deeply, the middle, because I’m still here sitting in this tension of what is, and what is to come.
Someone commented on my Instagram feed the other day how something I shared brought so much freedom to them because they normally look at my pictures and only see how much they don’t have their life together. It broke my heart.
When in fact, on the other side of this screen, I’m not together at all.
In fact, I figured out this week I’m in a season of a beautiful unraveling.
And I don’t like it.
Things haven’t been tidy or neat in my heart. Questions I thought I have already answered have swirled their way back around. Things I thought were completely healed, I’ve found are in fact, still very much in need of healing. And the garden of my heart, I thought was in full bloom, I’m suddenly seeing maybe some of those flowers were in fact weeds.
“I want a heart that is fully Yours, Papa,” I’ve prayed over and over the last six months.
He’s giving me exactly what I asked Him for. I’ve realized it’s much easier to pray those words than live them. Because if my heart is fully His, there are places that have been cozy and comfortable to me that have to get the boot. Big, dead branches that He’s cutting right off. And quite frankly, being pruned just plain sucks.
A sweet friend wrote me a letter a few weeks ago. In the letter, she mentioned how rope has to get burned on the edges, so it wouldn’t fray. I’ve felt that in this season.
A beautiful unraveling.
I’ve been meditating on the process. So often we want the end. The miracle. The mountain top. The promised land. But I think Jesus enjoys the journey just as much as the destination. If He delights in me mid-process, than I should be able to be okay with unfinished me too.
Every thing is hard right now.
But I’m just keeping my eyes closed, holding onto His hand, listening to His voice. It’s all He asks of me. And it’s the only thing I know how to do really well. There’s no failing when I do that.
If you’re unraveling today, friend, He can handle it.
He doesn’t want anything from you, but your heart. And it’s just as beautiful to Him now mid-process, as it will be when He’s completed His work in you. So be okay with your brokenness. Don’t hide from Him in shame.
He fully sees you, fully knows you, and even then, fully loves you.
Right where you are.