Cutting the Cord and Moving Forward

Each day, I write words that are prophetic in nature hopefully bringing encouragement and instruction. These words do not contain graphic imagery. Today will be different. The image used to carry this word is graphic. It is not meant to offend. 

Twice in the last week, the same image came to me. In the Spirit, I saw a woman stylishly dressed. She was attempting to walk but was struggling to gain momentum. She was straining and leaning forward as she walked because she had given birth to a baby. The child had died after its birth but was still attached to mother by an uncut umbilical cord. The mother was dragging the dead child behind her as she struggled forward.

The shock of the image broke my heart. I looked at the mother’s face. She was attempting to hold her composure together. She knew something was wrong but was not sure what to do. She felt her only option was to keep moving. The denial that a birth had taken place and the child was now dead was being expressed by a look of shock on her face.

I then saw the Lord enter the scene. He lovingly embraced the woman causing her to stop moving long enough for Him to speak. He said, “We need to bury this child. I had plans for this life that you did not realize. I want to heal you and give you hope. When you are healed, you will give birth again and this time I want to show you how to care for your newborn. This loss and sorrow will be overcome by the new life I will bring.”

When the image was finished, I knew I was looking at something that could be interpreted on many levels – personally, for a ministry, or on a wider scale regarding the image of the Western church in its current form. God has planted seeds of revival, renewal, and reformation in each of us that need tender care in the womb and when finally birthed. Without that care, something will die. The delivery of these promises do not always come at the most opportune time or in a way we thought was actually God. Historically, some of these births were ignored and we attempted to move on without properly carrying for what we were given. 

We talk and prophesy a great deal about the future and what might come by the power of God. In order to receive these words and bring them to term, we need to first bury what God conceived, faithfully birthed and we ignored. Like the woman in the image, the Lord has entered this moment in our history and He is stopping us to embrace us. In that embrace, He will ask us if we would be willing to have a memorial service for what was birthed with joy but in our ignorance or fear was allowed to die. 

God has a limitless supply of second chances. He is not meager in His giving. New life is emerging. Before the new arrives we need to stop and invite Jesus into our place of sorrow. With Him, we can grieve, cut the cord on the past and release everything into the loving hands of God. In that exchange, we will begin to feel the movement of a new life that God is preparing for delivery.