Popular posts: With butterfly wings

Well, there I was just about to put this post up again because it's one of my most popular posts, and as I read it, I realised how little has changed. I find it both depressing and comforting that a year ago during the summer school holidays I was struggling to find time to spend with you, Lord God, and struggling generally with day to day trivia of life.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, hey.

I was flat on my tummy yesterday in the garden photographing a butterfly.

For all these reasons it seems apt to repost this:



Evening, God.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Busy busy busy, you know; school holidays, packing for trips, the odd tummy bug. I'm wanting to catch up. 

Today we went to a Butterfly Centre. We went in bright sunshine, came home in torrential rain and picnicked in a howling gale, but we had a wonderful time. 

Butterfly

What a fantastic place. 

Birds of prey, fabulous peacocks, ancient tortoises, snakes and spiders and butterflies. Amazing, delicate, extravagantly beautiful butterflies. They lived in a recreation of a tropical rainforest complete with pools and tropical flowers, creepy crawlies, bats and birds. Everywhere things scuttled and crept and fluttered and slithered. The air was hot and humid and the sun shone through the transparent roof and transported us to another place. A large scaly lizard like thing as long as my arm perched up in the roof and a display of tiny, jewel-like poison dart frogs kept Katy occupied for ages. Elizabeth was mesmerised by a large snake slowly consuming a white rat and I was transfixed by the beauty of the butterflies. 

In our garden we often get butterflies. We have buddleia and cornflowers and marigolds and lots of (ahem) 'wilderness' areas and we're used to seeing what I've always thought of as cabbage whites and something that looks a bit like a red admiral (but probably isn't, I realise). I don't know much about butterflies and I confess that even today I was more interested in gazing at them and trying to take a decent photograph than I was in reading the educational material available. 

Fragile, but strong enough to do what it's meant to do.

Stunning colours, so fragile. Amazingly detailed; some of the butterflies looked as if they'd been coloured by hand. Elusive - they landed on a leaf at eye level but before I'd raised my camera they were off again, flitting between luscious blooms from petal to petal, weightless. They've been described as 'living flowers' and I like that. 

Apparently the average lifespan of a butterfly is about a month. They don't live very long, but while they live they are spectacular. They are pupae, then caterpillars, then they snuggle into their chrysalis for a while and then they hatch into gorgeous creatures that flutter and dance and sit on flowers waiting to have their picture taken, if any huge and clumsy human being stumbles near. 

Each of these tiny insects is unique. You made each one different. You chose their colours, the design on their wings, their size and shape and habits and flight pattern. You watch over each chrysalis as they sleep and you count very wing beat. What a Creator you are, to take such joy in the tiny and helpless. Even the fleeting life of a butterfly has meaning in the fragile eco-system of the rainforest, just as it does in my back garden. 

You made them beautiful just because you could. Your attention to detail never fails to amaze me. You could just have made a red one and a blue one and a yellow one, but the intricacy and detail are breathtaking. Today we even saw transparent butterflies. How cool is that? 

You know what captured my imagination today, though? It was when I came to the cabinet where the butterflies emerge fully formed from a chrysalis spun by a crawling caterpillar.  Ranks of chrysalises (is that the plural of chrysalis?) hung in rows - bright green, dark green, yellow, red, russet, even shiny gold. Some butterflies were in process of struggling slowly out of their cocoon and this is where it got to me. 

A butterfly has to battle to leave the chrysalis. It's not easy. It works hard to tear its way out and it has to fight, then rest. 

Fight, then rest. 

It is in the action of pushing its way into the world that the butterfly gains enough strength in its brand new and breathtakingly beautiful wings to fly. If I were to help a butterfly out of it's chrysalis, it would die. It would never fly. It would never become what it was meant to become, because it had never built up its muscles. If butterflies have muscles. I'm not sure about that, but you get the drift. 

Wow. 

Maybe I'm like a butterfly. I know that I live longer, but that's nonsense really because I know that my lifespan is only a tiny wingbeat in eternity. A blink. I know that I'm not as wonderfully beautiful as a butterfly, but then you tell me in the Bible that I am just those things; wonderful and beautiful. As I peered at those tiny insects today, feeling enormous and substantial in contrast with their delicate fragility, it made me think of the way you look at me. I am as vulnerable and ephemeral as a butterfly. 

I am nothing without you, my Creator.

Struggle, then rest, then struggle...

I too have a purpose, and I need muscles to fulfil it. If you helped me out of my chrysalis every time I tired and moaned and cried out to you to do it for me, then maybe I would never fly. 

So often I don't like how life is hard. I don't like that it takes so much effort and that even the good things, even the blessings, are hard work. We went to the Olympics last week and we visited family and we did wonderful things that are good gifts from you, opportunities that are rare and to be cherished, and yet I found myself exhausted simply with the daily job of negotiating life with two small energetic children who are programmed to get up early, stay up late and make much noise in between. 

I keep asking you, Father, why is it so hard? Is it just me? The generations before me just got on with things, why do I struggle so much? I want you to take the difficulty away and give me a break. But maybe, I wonder, if you did, then I might never have the strength to fly.

'Mummy, it's you with butterfly wings.'

Is that it? Do I need to push my way out, struggle, rest, struggle, rest, until I emerge into the light and open out my beautiful wings? Only then I'll be strong enough to take off and do what I was made to do. Fulfil my purpose in life. 

A few days ago my little girl, Lizzie, gave me a picture she'd drawn on a bit of notepaper. She handed it to me as a present. 

She said, 'Mummy, it's you. It's you with butterfly wings.'

Ah. 

So here it is. 

I'm as unique and beautiful as a butterfly, and my life is just as fleeting.

If you created and painted the butterflies with such painstaking love, then what a work of art am I?

A butterfly is just a tiny insect but has a vital, God-given role to play in the world, and so do I... 

Fragile as they are, they need strength to do what they were created to do. They struggle, and rest, and then one day they spread their beautiful wings and fly.

And you smile.

That's good enough for me. 

Missing the butterflies

Morning, God.

It's a beautiful morning. One of those Autumn mornings that's alright by me, by the way. The sky is a cloudless blue, the sun is shining and lighting up the reds and oranges until they glow, and it's cold enough to see your breath. Crisp and clear and cold. That's a good Autumn day. Much better than the dank and dreary damp ones that make me feel depressed. Just saying.

This morning me and my two girls snuggled on my bed and watched the sun come up. It was golden and red and orange and yellow. On the way to school Elizabeth and I saw a snail on a leaf, we saw a spider's web with dew lit by the sun, and we saw small purple flowers growing from a crack in a brick wall. Katy, resplendent today in Batman Tshirt, bounced into her classroom and announced, 'Awesome! It's PE!' and did her happy dance, to her teacher's amusement. I am just filled with admiration that a daughter of mine could rejoice at the realisation that the first lesson of the day was exercise.

I'm learning how important it is to notice the little things. The light on the appletrees. The sound of birdsong in the early morning. A small girl's dimples of delight in a Batman Tshirt. I'm learning that you're teaching me to find you in the small things. How could I see you in the big things if I routinely walk past you when you're showing me the small? Even the seemingly insignificant has your signature. The last roses. Withered tomato plants bearing the last ripening fruit. 

Lord, I'm needing to see you. I'm looking out of the window on this glorious day and still feeling out of touch. I see you everywhere but I don't feel you. There's something inside of me missing today. It's very very beautiful and all is right in my world and yet I feel heavy and weighed down.

We haven't talked much lately, have we? It's only been a day or three with only a passing word between us but it doesn't take long for me to feel disconnected. I need to hang on tight, but how quickly I loosen my grip.  A dozen excuses; I'm tired, I'm short of time, I feel this, or I don't feel that... and I turn away. I need to stop and sit with you. I have so many things to do. Good things; worthy things, but I need to stop. Stop.

A moment ago I saw a beautiful orange and yellow and black butterfly land on the wall outside the window. In my haste to try and take a photograph, I frightened it away before I got a good look. That's sort of symbolic I think. I'm trying so hard to get somewhere that I don't notice where I am. I my rush to capture the moment forever; to use it for something... I lost it.

Forever asking where you're leading me and when we'll get there and are we nearly there yet? - and completely miss where we actually are.

I'm grabbing my camera and trying to peer through the lens and missing the butterflies.

Right now.

Where you are.

Father there's so much that I want to do, so much that I want to achieve. I want to do more, do better, be better. I want to grow and change and I want to get where I'm going - or at least feel as if I'm making progress. I'm frustrated about being. I don't find it easy to stop because I don't want to. I want to move on. I know that your Plan is perfect and your timing is spot on and yet I feel like stamping and shouting and folding my arms with a scowl like Elizabeth does because you're not doing things my way. I know what I think my life should look like and I don't really understand why you're not agreeing with me. Aren't my plans good plans? I want to do so much for you.

Honestly.

But I can't offer you a single thing. There's nothing I can do for you that you need; there's nothing that you want from me. I think you're telling me that for now, I should just be. Concentrate on me and you and stop the hamster wheel thing, the running, running, trying, trying.  I'm quite sure that what you want me to be is more important than what you want me to do. It seems to me that I know this, but I keep forgetting.

Is that it?

I'm tired, Lord. Tired because I didn't get enough sleep last night and tired of feeling battered and bruised. Tired of trying to do the right thing and tired of the knot in my stomach when I get it wrong. Tired of being confused and tired of trying to work things out.

So here it is.

Lord, once again I'm dumping all this in front of you. You know all about my fears and my worries, and you know about my hopes and dreams because you planted them in my heart. I think that in your time you'll water them and make them grow, but I don't know for sure because I'm just me and you're God.

I'll trust you anyway.

Here are all the stress and anxiety and lurking unease that's weighing me down this morning. Things that I'm carrying round when I don't need to.  All the stuff that's making me feel down on a spectacular Autumn morning. You said you'd carry it for me and I'd like to take you up on that, please.

Thankyou for the sunrise and for my daughters who shared it with me for a brief few moments amid their squabble about who had used the last precious heart shaped sticker.

Thankyou for the snail and the flowers and the spider's web and the dew.

Thankyou for Katy's energy and her enthusiasm and her Batman superpowers.

Thankyou for her wonderful gentle young teacher who hardly seems old enough to be teaching my daughter but who has given her a delight in coming to school that makes my heart swell.

Thankyou for the reds and golds and oranges of the Autumn leaves and the blue sky and the sunshine and the apples on the trees.

And thankyou for the butterfly. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to stop and look.

With butterfly wings

Evening, God.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Busy busy busy, you know; school holidays, packing for trips, the odd tummy bug. I'm wanting to catch up. 

Today we went to a Butterfly Centre. We went in bright sunshine, came home in torrential rain and picnicked in a howling gale, but we had a wonderful time. 

Butterfly

What a fantastic place. 

Birds of prey, fabulous peacocks, ancient tortoises, snakes and spiders and butterflies. Amazing, delicate, extravagantly beautiful butterflies. They lived in a recreation of a tropical rainforest complete with pools and tropical flowers, creepy crawlies, bats and birds. Everywhere things scuttled and crept and fluttered and slithered. The air was hot and humid and the sun shone through the transparent roof and transported us to another place. A large scaly lizard like thing as long as my arm perched up in the roof and a display of tiny, jewel-like poison dart frogs kept Katy occupied for ages. Elizabeth was mesmerised by a large snake slowly consuming a white rat and I was transfixed by the beauty of the butterflies. 

In our garden we often get butterflies. We have buddleia and cornflowers and marigolds and lots of (ahem) 'wilderness' areas and we're used to seeing what I've always thought of as cabbage whites and something that looks a bit like a red admiral (but probably isn't, I realise). I don't know much about butterflies and I confess that even today I was more interested in gazing at them and trying to take a decent photograph than I was in reading the educational material available. 

Fragile, but strong enough to do what it's meant to do.

Stunning colours, so fragile. Amazingly detailed; some of the butterflies looked as if they'd been coloured by hand. Elusive - they landed on a leaf at eye level but before I'd raised my camera they were off again, flitting between luscious blooms from petal to petal, weightless. They've been described as 'living flowers' and I like that. 

Apparently the average lifespan of a butterfly is about a month. They don't live very long, but while they live they are spectacular. They are pupae, then caterpillars, then they snuggle into their chrysalis for a while and then they hatch into gorgeous creatures that flutter and dance and sit on flowers waiting to have their picture taken, if any huge and clumsy human being stumbles near. 

Each of these tiny insects is unique. You made each one different. You chose their colours, the design on their wings, their size and shape and habits and flight pattern. You watch over each chrysalis as they sleep and you count very wing beat. What a Creator you are, to take such joy in the tiny and helpless. Even the fleeting life of a butterfly has meaning in the fragile eco-system of the rainforest, just as it does in my back garden. 

You made them beautiful just because you could. Your attention to detail never fails to amaze me. You could just have made a red one and a blue one and a yellow one, but the intricacy and detail are breathtaking. Today we even saw transparent butterflies. How cool is that? 

You know what captured my imagination today, though? It was when I came to the cabinet where the butterflies emerge fully formed from a chrysalis spun by a crawling caterpillar.  Ranks of chrysalises (is that the plural of chrysalis?) hung in rows - bright green, dark green, yellow, red, russet, even shiny gold. Some butterflies were in process of struggling slowly out of their cocoon and this is where it got to me. 

A butterfly has to battle to leave the chrysalis. It's not easy. It works hard to tear its way out and it has to fight, then rest. 

Fight, then rest. 

It is in the action of pushing its way into the world that the butterfly gains enough strength in its brand new and breathtakingly beautiful wings to fly. If I were to help a butterfly out of it's chrysalis, it would die. It would never fly. It would never become what it was meant to become, because it had never built up its muscles. If butterflies have muscles. I'm not sure about that, but you get the drift. 

Wow. 

Maybe I'm like a butterfly. I know that I live longer, but that's nonsense really because I know that my lifespan is only a tiny wingbeat in eternity. A blink. I know that I'm not as wonderfully beautiful as a butterfly, but then you tell me in the Bible that I am just those things; wonderful and beautiful. As I peered at those tiny insects today, feeling enormous and substantial in contrast with their delicate fragility, it made me think of the way you look at me. I am as vulnerable and ephemeral as a butterfly. 

I am nothing without you, my Creator.

Struggle, then rest, then struggle...

I too have a purpose, and I need muscles to fulfil it. If you helped me out of my chrysalis every time I tired and moaned and cried out to you to do it for me, then maybe I would never fly. 

So often I don't like how life is hard. I don't like that it takes so much effort and that even the good things, even the blessings, are hard work. We went to the Olympics last week and we visited family and we did wonderful things that are good gifts from you, opportunities that are rare and to be cherished, and yet I found myself exhausted simply with the daily job of negotiating life with two small energetic children who are programmed to get up early, stay up late and make much noise in between. 

I keep asking you, Father, why is it so hard? Is it just me? The generations before me just got on with things, why do I struggle so much? I want you to take the difficulty away and give me a break. But maybe, I wonder, if you did, then I might never have the strength to fly.

'Mummy, it's you with butterfly wings.'

Is that it? Do I need to push my way out, struggle, rest, struggle, rest, until I emerge into the light and open out my beautiful wings? Only then I'll be strong enough to take off and do what I was made to do. Fulfil my purpose in life. 

A few days ago my little girl, Lizzie, gave me a picture she'd drawn on a bit of notepaper. She handed it to me as a present. 

She said, 'Mummy, it's you. It's you with butterfly wings.'

Ah. 

So here it is. 

I'm as unique and beautiful as a butterfly, and my life is just as fleeting.

If you created and painted the butterflies with such painstaking love, then what a work of art am I?

A butterfly is just a tiny insect but has a vital, God-given role to play in the world, and so do I... 

Fragile as they are, they need strength to do what they were created to do. They struggle, and rest, and then one day they spread their beautiful wings and fly.

And you smile.

That's good enough for me.