Have you ever been faced with a problem that feels like it’s tangled up with all sorts of other things?

Maybe it’s one thing rubbing you the wrong way in a friendship or relationship that feels deeply connected to another struggle you’re having with a completely different person. Or a difficulty on a work project that you procrastinate starting on because another project of yours is also wildly behind.

In these moments, it can feel like the “main” issue is completely tangled up in a hundred other things, like this gnarled weed I discovered wrapped tightly around dozens of our flower stems this weekend:

When I finally discovered this patch, it had sneakily taken over a whole corner of our flowers. Its tiny tendrils clung to the stems, choking it slowly.

It reminded me of something a mentor had shared with me on a mission trip once, when I was struggling with finding purpose in our work while worrying about some family health complications back home. At the time, it all felt tangled up together. I couldn’t see why we were doing “nothing” at the moment in our ministry, and why I wasn’t home with my family while they were going through a lot. Every time I thought about the situation, I felt confused and angry, and I wasn’t being very present or supportive in either my current location or for my loved ones back home, but I didn’t know how to sort through my mixed up feelings, or what I should do with them.

She shared a metaphor that I’ve since used time and time again: if your problems are tangled up like spaghetti, you have to pull out one strand at a time.

Similar to this weed bush, if I tried to tackle everything at once, I’d start haphazardly hacking away, likely with mixed success.

Instead, if I started by gently pulling on one thread, I could figure out how to unwrap it from the stem in its clutches, working slowly and methodically until that one was free. And then I could repeat that, over and over again.

As I pondered my mentor’s words on a beach in Southeast Asia, I reflected on another question she had asked me in the same call.

“Who do you want to be when you get home from all of this? What do you still need to do while you’re here for that to happen?”

I journaled and prayed for a few hours that morning, realizing how much I still wanted to grow on that trip to become a person of fierce love, brimming with hospitality and openness when I got home. I prayed about wanting to grow in boldness, obedience, trust, perseverance, and more.

Don’t get me wrong- I was still frustrated after that with our slower pace and the days it felt like “all we were doing” was praying. At the same time, though, I felt a much deeper peace about where I was and why I was there, and could interact with my teammates and support my family back home from a place of quiet trust instead of constant frustration.

And wouldn’t you know, the next month would bring my favorite “work” on that whole trip- partnering with a local school with a large immigrant population to play games with them and teach them English, and to do a whole lesson (featuring a song my teammate wrote!) on how to dream big and what kinds of opportunities are out there.

If I had sat in my pile of spaghetti, or given up on it entirely, I might have missed out on what was coming just ahead. I certainly would’ve been even more caught off guard when our team got sent home unexpectedly just a few short weeks later as reports of a “coronavirus” started shaking up our world.

Instead, I was able to approach even that season of massive chaos and confusion with a deeper trust that the Lord would see us through it, and with a desire to work things out one at a time instead of giving up and stay in tangled in a pile.

Again, it wasn’t a perfect process by any means, and I certainly had days where it felt like I was just sitting in the spaghetti. But remembering to take it one day at a time, to try to solve one manageable problem at a time, helped turn the daunting chaos of the world into a season somehow still filled with beautiful moments, and new friendships and experiences.

If you find yourself in a pile of tangled weeds or spaghetti right now, what is one tiny thread you can start pulling on? Who can you ask for help as you start to gently untangle things? You don’t have to do it alone.

I pray you’d have the strength and courage and wisdom to untangle whatever you’re facing right now, one strand at a time.