In the Waiting

I've always been fascinated by metamorphosis, the caterpillar being stuck in a cocoon before being transformed into a butterfly.

I've entered seasons just like this, seasons in which God slams the breaks on all my ideas and forces me to take a pause and reflect on His goodness. It's also a chance for me to regroup and more deeply ground myself in the Truths found within His Word. Often, these pauses are a result of losing something or someone. Perhaps getting fired or a break-up led to a season of being very much alone. While isolation is not good, sometimes aloneness is exactly what we need.

I've found in these moments, a stripping away of all the noise of others. I've noticed in these moments that the season of the chrysalis often involves a forced denial of the will. I want to be doing so many things, but instead I failed and now I'm forced out of what I was doing. I lost my job, or someone else took over that church ministry. (I guess they can do a better job I think with salty tears.) Or maybe it's something as simple as I lost a friendship and now I am feeling alone.

It's in these moments that we pause and regroup. We learn from the mistake and we come back to what really is at the core of our greatest longing - God Himself.

We come back to HIM. And we meet with Him because maybe He is all we have.

He strips away the opinions of others, He lets our reputation crumble. He lets us see the depth of our sin apart from Christ, He lets us feel the pain that this world sometimes contains. He lets us be rejected. And as we offer up our bleeding, sin-infested hearts to Him in silence and away from the noise, He begins a work in us. To slowly transform us from caterpillars groping in the dark to butterflies soaring in the light.

I've found the best thing I can do is be okay to rest in the chrysalis. Of course, I can't help but long to spread my wings and fly, but those moments in the chrysalis are sometimes where God wants us to stay for much longer than we want to be there. The best thing I can do is recognize that more than wanting wings to fly, I want Him. I can glorify Him in my little closet away from the accolades of a "good Christian girl." I can breathe each breath at home for the glory of God and, in so doing, glorify God just as much as Beth Moore does standing on a stage sharing Scripture with the masses.

So, take heart if you're in the chrysalis awaiting the redemption story in which you burst forth into the light. Take these moments as sweet even as they are painful. Take them as rest even as they require work. Breath in and breath out God's glory in this simple moment. Right here in the waiting.