Coming Undone

Winter had not yet fled when Good Friday made its appearance. I had always looked forward to Good Friday since I was a child. I loved the somber acknowledgment of what had been sacrificed for me, for my sins. The pronouncement of “IT IS FINISHED.”

Some years back, Good Friday stood sentinel as a time I was going to reflect on what had been done for me. In my mind the time was preordained. I was going to soak in every element of the Passion and live in the Friday moment - not yet looking for the Sunday coming. 

It was on that Good Friday that I found out my husband had betrayed our wedding vows. While I had long suspected it, the truth slammed into me like an eighteen wheeler. Leaving me leveled.

I was undone. Completely undone.

Totally rejected, utterly scorned.

I felt mingled with the trash, of the abuse that occurred and left me just a vestige of myself. The mistakes I had made, the choices I had chosen against all better judgment, all led to the demise of personhood, my belief in my self, my trust in my faith. I hardly knew who I was, and what I did know I was ashamed of.

I felt unworthy of God’s grace. I had fallen so far, I could not comprehend how God’s grace could mingle with my spirit and heal my wounds.

Today, I can see the irony of the occurrence of these events in my life on that specific day of the calendar year.

It was cold that Good Friday, rainy, dreary and the wind was whipping like an angry slave driver. As I walked from my doctor’s appointment, I had my coat unbuttoned and my head uncovered and I let the cold, deathlike feeling, seep into my body as it had already seeped into my soul.

I had never been this broken, hopeless, and devoid of faith. Jesus felt so far from me in those moments that I nearly felt He ceased to exist in my life. The battle was real.

I got in my shiny red sports car, hunkered down in the seat and wept.

My shell had cracked. I felt like an unfinished seed, cast aside to die before it ever bloomed.

Unbeknownst to me at that moment God was with me there - He knew I would end up at this point and in this car with windows steamed from my guttural sobs. HE WAS THERE. And, it was not some tragic mess I had made in that moment that He was questioning, “How can I possibly clean up this child of mine, with nothing left to restore?”

Instead, He was holding out his hand, hoping I would choose to walk with Him into the future he had created for me knowing all the while the seed of my shell needed to be cracked. The moments of the self-righteous girl raised in a Christian home who was quick to judge, the times when I sinned flagrantly needed to be exposed. I had to become undone for God to truly work.

My insides had spilled out, not just in that car but across my life - touching family, and friends. For one looking in it would appear to be complete destruction, a final failure, and unredeemable life.

For sure, I felt that was the truth in my life.

I could say that the work God was to do in my life happened in the lone moments in my car nestled against my heated leather seat but it was far from actually taking root and beginning. I was just a broken, open seed.

I would go to counseling, and I would seek out mentoring, I would call on Jesus and He would answer me in a way He had never been able to before.

He would write this letter on my heart, through my journaling…

Begin again My beautiful one. Be brave, for you are fighting an enemy who wants your soul, and to destroy your beautiful heart which I created. Find the forgiveness I have for you. Find the life I long for you to have and that I have created for you before you were even a thought in your parents’ minds.

Start over. Again. Again. Again. And, Again. This is the meaning of grace. Love yourself as I love you.

I would have to go back to the tear-streaked pages over and over again, in truth, I needed to return to them just this week.

But, I know through Paul’s letter to Peter “I am a chosen person, a royal priestess, a holy nation, a woman belonging to God that I may declare the praises of Him who called me out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (I Peter2:9, emphasis mine)

And, so the setbacks occur, and the failures, and the regrets,  and so my shell cracks more and I become more His.