Unravelling

 There is a song by Cory Asbury called “unravelling”.  It is unnerving and raw and there is a deep story there, as with many songs.  They touch our own deep and raw stories and minister to us all in different ways.  The last lines of the song haunts me: 

“I’m coming apart at the seams, it’s worse than I thought it would be … but I have never been happier.” 

They haunt me, because I am not there. The song takes me to my raw sadness and I feel deep loss, and then it ends with, “I have never been happier.” It is just not the way I would end the song. It feels so wrong for me, for my story, for my pain, for my loss. I can’t imagine ever being ‘happier” again. I know it sounds hopeful, but it is hard to hear when you can’t imagine it is even possible.

I have a dear friend who is currently knitting a blanket for me as she is praying for me. What a gift, what a beautiful thing to do for someone. Over the 4 months of my trip she is knitting, creating and praying while she knits. 

‘I am shaping the physical representation of my prayers for you, so when you arrive home, you can keep warm and snuggle under our love.”  (her words).  

I understand enough about knitting to know it takes a long time to create something.  It is a slow process and it requires you to sit still. All good things for healing and prayer. But I also know that with knitting, if something goes wrong or you make a mistake you can’t just keep going on and hope it fixes itself. In fact, sometimes the mistakes or accidents are so big that you must unravel the knitting back to the point where the incident happened and start again.  If you have come so far, it is painful to unravel and start again. I mean really, let’s be honest, who wants to do that?  I get why at this stage some simply quit. There are many pieces of knitting in people’s homes which are unfinished, I am sure.  It is easy to feel gutted and like it has all been a waste of time. 

While my friend is knitting me a blanket of love, I find myself in a time of life where the unravelling is so painful, so huge, so overwhelming that I can’t ever imagine being happier.  To unravel something that has been made over many years still takes my breath away, daily.  I feel each day, a piece is being unraveled and I watch all that I thought was being created with love and care and joy, being unraveled with silence, confusion, hurtful words and actions, shame and doubt, fear and hopelessness. I know what it is like to feel gutted. I have felt the pull of wanting to quit, the questions ‘WHY’ with no answers?

To unravel a mistake makes sense. Although I am not the perfectionist, I would probably leave the mistakes and see them as unique and special. That says a lot about me, doesn’t it?  However, there are times when this is necessary. I am all for refining and becoming the best you, the you you’re created to be, and that means at times the “unravelling’ is the best thing for you.  

But then there are times when something beautiful is being "unraveled” and to watch that, is to break your heart. It is like when you get a snag in your favorite jumper. Worse still is when someone comes along and deliberately begins pulling a loose piece, as a joke, or maybe they are not even sure what they are doing. Sometimes it is meant to be hurtful, other times it is simply an accident. Either way it is something that happens to you and you have no control over it. This unravelling is the saddest kind. 

Whether it is a good or bad unravelling, I know the story of the unravelling is so that it can be re-knitted correctly or simply for the reminder that things unravel and there is always a chance to start again. In the end it is about the cycle of life and death, and that HOPE is sometimes all we have to hold onto. But when you are being “unraveled” is it is so uncomfortable. 

For me, every stitch that comes apart, releases another and another and pretty soon you find yourself with nothing to show for yourself for all that you have given and invested, wondering what was even real.  When it is unraveled, it is gone, you can no longer see it, you can’t get it back, you simply have to start again.

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God”. Corrie Ten Boom

I am unraveling. I can’t say that I am happy, but I know the story isn’t over yet, the knitting of my life is not finished yet. And I know in the unknown re-knitting I choose to trust. It is all I can do. 

I imagine you have your own story of unravelling.  You may be at the beginning, you may be like me in the middle and not able to see the ‘happy’ yet, you may be at the end and able to sing, “I have never been happier”. This is the power of sharing our stories and unravelling together.  We see we are not alone, and that there is an end. We see with Him there is always HOPE that at the end of the knitting it will be beautiful.