My boys have special knitted blankets that my Mom made them, and while all three adore their “lovies”, Camden loves his most of all. Picture Linus from the Peanuts comic, toting his beloved blanket everywhere he goes, never apart. The blanket has been so well loved, it began to fall apart. First it was just one string that came loose, but before long it began to completely unravel. It seemed as if it was beyond saving, something precious beyond repair.
Thankfully my Mom, skilled with the needles, began mending the blanket. She took new yarn and weaved it in with the new - not replacing the old blanket but strengthening it, adding to it, weaving something new.
When something in our lives begins to seemingly unravel, often our first reaction is one of panic and doubt.
The disciples had been doing ministry with Jesus for just a few years, in that time they’d done quite a bit together. They had shaken up ideals, challenged the status quo, ushered in a new kind of thinking, one that was established not on any system but on a person. They had healed people and cared for people- they had hung around people and places that the religious types would not dare to go- all in the name of Jesus. The radical ideals of justice, mercy and compassion were part of their daily life and I have the feeling that the disciples felt like things were just getting started. I am sure there were dreams of what the future would hold, together in ministry and life and they were counting on many years ahead.
And then, Jesus died. Sure He had been preparing them for this time, but they had not understood and the death of Jesus was a major blow. In that moment on the cross, when He breathed His last breath I can imagine in the midst of grief and pain the disciples felt everything they thought they knew unraveling.
In fact Peter, one of Jesus’s friends and followers, immediately begin to fall apart. Before Jesus is even on the cross, Peter denies He even knows Jesus, not once but three times. Peter tries to distance himself the whole situation. Three days after the death of Jesus, Mary Magdelene heads to the tomb, and not seeing His body there begins to weep- not understanding what has happened. The disciples themselves were together, hiding behind closed doors out of fear.
Hopes, dreams, plans...unraveled.
The trajectory you were on, dramatically altered.
I can find myself spinning when the things I thought were coming, plans I was working towards, dreams I was longing for begin to unravel and seemingly fall apart. It’s as if one thread is being pulled and at first it’s manageable, but before I know it everything has come undone and I’m sitting holding a pile of strings.
I panic. I question everything. I second guess myself, what I felt I had heard from God and I begin forming a Plan B, a backup plan. I start to try and manifest something myself, out of fear.
I can’t begin to know what kind of conversations the disciples were having behind closed doors, but I imagine they went through a similar process of panic, questioning, second guessing and then creating new plans based on their limited knowledge and understanding.
The reality is, Jesus rose from the dead and what seemed to be an unraveling was really a weaving of a new story.
In His resurrection, Jesus brings in a new Kingdom. He pays the ultimate price on our behalf and because of the cross we can have new life in Jesus. What the disciples thought was an ending, was really a beginning. The Bible ultimately is a love story, each part revealing God’s love to us.
When we trust in God to weave a new story for us and believe that in midst of chaos and handfuls of strings God is making something new- our faith grows. Whatever you’re facing today...whether it’s a sense of loss or confusion, a grieving of dreams that did not come to fruition or a change in trajectory that is leaving you feeling unsteady- I encourage you to lean in and trust that God is working behind the scenes to create a new story, that He cares for you and you can trust Him.
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