Welcome to this short blog series called the unraveling.

First, let’s define unraveling: to resolve the intricacy, complexity, or obscurity of : to clear up

To resolve a snarl, to solve a mystery. For this blog I will define it: to reverse a tangle.

Have you ever been in a tangle?

Have you ever spent time undoing a tangle in a necklace with a needle? I have. I’ve also slow brushed through tangled hair, and one time when trying to get out of my clothes, I found myself stuck in a tangle of speghetti straps. BTW – I suggest if your straps are stretched out just get rid of it and get some new tops. It’s far less frustrating.

That is a truth to a tangle! There is an element of frustration to a tangle and if you’ve ever found yourself fighting with one, you know that the harder you pull the tighter the tangle becomes. You also know that there is a moment, if you will be patient enough and keep working at it, that the tangle will just unravel. This is the moment I am in. I’ve been stuck in a soul tangle and I finally feel the unraveling. Before I really get into this topic , I want to further explore this expression of tangle. Some tangles, like a necklace are a result of a twisting and winding around of a strand that are pulled so tight you have to use a small pointed tool to unravel it. Other tangles are made up of multiple strands that have crisscrossed in several places to create a complex snarl. Either way the unraveling happens when the twisted or crisscrossed places have unraveled, leaving you with a smooth clear line.

Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men who have planned to trip up my feet. The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net; beside the way they have set snares for me. Selah

Psalm 140:4-5

Tangles like that in a necklace are like circumstantial worries, anxiety, or fears. Tangles like that of multiple strands of anything (pain, grief, deep hurt, accusation, loneliness, sin, trauma) may be part of a string of events that have been going on through years. We might even have been able to untangle some single strained situations while simultaneaously be tangled up in a much larger web that we can not see. Sometimes we walk through stuff like that. It can feel like we are in the throes of testing, where we are experiencing or doing something that is difficult, unpleasant, or painful.

For each of of it could be a combination of tests. Brian Fenimore, author and teacher from Plumbline Ministries said that we walk through 7 kinds of tests.

1. Character Test – How you treat people and handle your business.

2. Motivation Test – Why do we do what we do – God, man, or self.

3. Servant Test – Are you a doer of the word – will you follow Him where ever He calls.

4. Wilderness Test – When its feels dark & lonely where will you run for comfort.

5. Misunderstanding Test – When no one gets it and everything you say and do is misconstrued how will you respond.

6. Warfare Test – When opposition from all sides comes – will you stand therefore.

7. Time Test – Will you wait or will you create your own way.

Well, I just have to say that I think it is possible that for many of us we may be currently walking through one or two of those tests, (one strand tangles) but we have all been through them all – just think 2020-2022. (multistrand tangle) Is it possible that because we are resilient, face forward, perservering kind of people that we may have missed the forrest for the trees? Have we so been just dealing with one thing after another that we haven’t put 2+2 together? We haven’t seen (but most likely we have felt) the bigger picture?

Over the next few blogs I am going to unpack this mess as I have seen and felt it and hopefully as you read, it will trigger you to see and feel too.

May God reveal and release us as we unravel the truth…

Thanks for reading,

Starla