Blessed to be Broken

Have you ever folded a piece of laundry and then dropped it? It falls to the ground in a heap, disheveled once again by circumstance.

You pick it back up, attempt folding it again with the hopes this time, it remains folded.

There’s no guarantee this time it will work out the way you want. You could totally drop the same piece of laundry over and over.

This results in frustration. Maybe even throwing said piece of laundry across the room. Which is really nothing more than sabotaging what you’re trying to accomplish.

Now you have stomp across the room, pick up the garment, and either throw it again or do what needed to be done in the first place. Fold it.

To me, folding laundry is tedious. Seems everyone these days is totally ready to tell you; “You’ve been folding laundry wrong your whole life.” Psssshhhtttt. What do “they” know?

In reality, what does it matter? The end result is the same. The laundry needs to be folded. To not fold the laundry would mean, dare I say it…chaos.

Worse yet, what if a person we live with folds the laundry different from ourselves? The horrors!! Am I right?

Just like laundry, the majority of us want life to be “folded” the way we want.

It’s not easy to let life unfold. It feels too precarious and unmanageable when left to chance.

We want to label it, put it neatly away inside our safe and tidy box. If we can just maintain, and control the narrative of every little thing, we’ll be alright.

But that’s not really living is it?

In this season of life, I can reflect, and see nothing has turned out like I planned.

For the whole of my life, all I wanted was to feel safe. So, like a mime, I build myself an impenetrable box made up of imaginary walls, and pat them in place from the inside out.

But those imaginary walls weren’t so I couldn’t get out. It was so others couldn’t get in.

Ha! I bet you thought the mime was always trying to escape the box they designed, but in my world, they built a force field around them. Clever, clever, mime.

But, that’s not really living either is it?

As I sit here at my kitchen table looking out the window as the falling leaves twirl and dance in the breeze, I’m once again reminded, change is inevitable.

It will happen whether I want it to or not.

This has been a season of valleys for me. Each one a new lesson on how to walk with open hands. On loosening my grip on my perceived control.

Allowing life to unfold “naturally” over orchestrating it to my venue.

Easy is not the word I would use to describe this process. Key word being, process.

God has been showing me in this season that my need to feel safe is not the same as being safe with Him.

Huh? Lemme see if I can explain. God told us that in this world we would have trouble. However, nobody wants to experience trouble. Yet, there’s no escaping it.

But, God doesn’t leave us hanging out to dry on our own when trouble comes to call. He promises to be with us. We’re going to feel all the things. It’s hardwired in our being.

What He’s saying is, during the trouble, we have a safe place in Him. With him. We can turn our thoughts to Him knowing He has a plan.

Notice I said, “a” plan. More often than naught, it won’t look anything like my plan.

My safety doesn’t reside in the constraints of a self-made box. If that were the case, how small am I making God?

To give Him the room to only move inside my tiny box would place limits on an unlimitless God. God is in the details, but He is anything buy small minded.

So what can I do? Such a good question!

I can invite God in and allow Him to reconstruct the walls and stretch the boundaries of my square footage. Literally unfold the laundry that I’ve folded the same way for years. In other words, renew my mind.

Ahhh! Here’s the kicker. In order to feel safe with God, you have to trust Him. In order to trust Him, you have to know Him. In order to know Him, you have to humble yourself before Him.

I remember years ago during a tumultuous time in my life I cried out to a friend and asked, “Why does God want to take everything from me?”

Her response was, “God doesn’t want to take everything from you, He wants to give you everything.”

In my small mindedness, I thought that meant all the worldly things a person could ever want.

I thought the promises of God were all that I’d need, forgetting the promises of God come from Him.

Since the promises come from Him, that makes Him the promise.

See, it’s really not that complicated. Everything points to Jesus. Everything comes from the Father. Everything that I need, is HIM.

Sweet friends, there isn’t anything under the sun that God doesn’t already know, hasn’t already seen, and doesn’t already has a plan set it place to work it out.

Okay, let’s wrap this up. We can take comfort knowing that an all-knowing God is still who He says He is, and will be the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He’s the one constant that doesn’t change.

However life’s laundry looks for you today, know it won’t remain that way forever. God has a plan. He’s not out to get you. He’s a Savior after all.

Have an amazing day!