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| Photos take from ebay, where these butterflies are actually for sale. |
The butterfly in
the frame looks safe. Secure. Protected forever from wind, from disease,
from decay.
But the butterfly
is dead. Her wings are forever pinned to
a board.
Once she flew free
and beautiful and radiant. In doing so,
each day she risked damage, hurt, and abuse from the world all around her.
But she
lived. She flew. And sometimes she caught a gust of wind, and
she soared.
I want to soar,
but I find myself thinking backwards about what soaring means. I tend to think it means being active, busy,
involved in some great way that makes me feel significant. Yet however much those things fill me with
temporary good feelings, in the end I find them actually becoming things that
hold me down, keep me from true soaring—the freedom and flight that is true
peace.
Most of the time I
cannot soar—cannot live truly at peace—because I am afraid. I fear what others think of me. I fear them looking at my life and assuming I
am lazy because I am not involved in every possible activity at church, or I
fear they will think I am incompetent if I say no to certain activities that
might be expected of me. Perversely, one
of the reasons I do not fly is actually myself—my own expectations of what a
good woman of God should be, should look like, should do. I end up weighing myself down with anxiety and
stress—things too heavy to carry into the clouds on my thin, weak wings.
I’m afraid to let
go of the things that on the surface give me a sense of significance. I’m afraid to give up my clinging hold to
what feels stable and secure. So I
remain somewhere in between the butterfly that is free and the butterfly
forever pinned down. I am not free, but
the things that keep me on the ground are pins of my own choosing. Pins I myself placed to keep my wings from
catching the unpredictable, uncertain winds of change and risk.
And yet, sometimes
I look up and long for the wonder that could be mine if I would only take the
chance.
I am not the only
one. I see women all around me who are
afraid. We see the fragility within our
nurturing nature. We see the wind in the
harsh world around us and fear the vulnerability in our small, thin wings. We want to protect ourselves. So we hide inside our schedules. We stay safe under a blanket of
stress-producing expectations.
But to do so is to
die to what God created us to be.
God created us to
be beautiful, radiant, at peace. Not
needing to prove anything.
Have you ever seen
anything truly beautiful that did not fill your heart with rest? The very nature of beauty is what sets our
souls at peace.
A gentle stream
flowing over your bare feet. A bouquet
of flowers, just because. The serenity
on the face of a sleeping child.
You.
Yes, you.
God’s intention
for you is beauty. He created you as a
woman. He gave you the deep down desire
to be feminine, to be beautiful, to put others’ souls at rest by your peace.
Femininity has
become a bad word in our present culture.
It has become synonymous with weakness—with any woman who refuses to
achieve her full potential and is therefore lesser than those who “do it all”.
I feel that. I feel it every time I check “housewife” on
one of those information sheets at the doctor’s office, imagining the reactions
from all those who feel I am less of a person because I am “just” a wife and
mother, and do not have a career added to that.
I feel it because I have chronic health problems, and have to say no
sometimes to keep my family my first ministry.
I even feel it from the church sometimes, where it feels like even my spirituality
is determined by how active I am—in ways that show, of course.
I propose the idea
that it is not how busy we are that determines our closeness with our
Savior. Rather, it is whether or not we
can rest in Him, not having to prove ourselves to feel worthy of His love.
Doing too much is
just as wrong as doing too little. I am
learning, albeit slowly, that if I am not at peace, no matter how busy I am “for
the Lord,” I am not right with Him.
Effort in and of itself is not soaring.
In fact, effort can be the very thing keeping us on the ground.
What if I get to
the end of my life and face God, proud of the handful of achievements and
activities I have brought from my life, only to hear Him say that what He
wanted was for me to be content with the job, however small, He had asked of me
and to show and share that contentment with others? A butterfly so intently busy securing myself
to the ground, I never fulfilled by purpose in showing others how to fly.
If you think about
it, butterflies do not do much on the grand scale of life on earth. They don’t help the ozone layer, or
perpetuate the ecosystem in a big way.
They do their part, each of them, but they don’t strive to do any more
than their part. They are what God
created them to be, and that is enough.
But a purpose for
the butterfly that is often overlooked is beauty. The butterfly is beautiful, something that
brings joy to its Maker, and joy to any who see it. If people stop and watch a butterfly, their
hearts respond to its fragile beauty and its serenity.
Like a butterfly,
you have so much to offer the world—not in a multitude of impressive achievements,
in just being you. In soaring unafraid,
which is a song of praise to your Maker.
In being beautiful, a gentle and quiet spirit that is so precious to
God, and so peace-giving to others around you.
Wouldn’t you want
to be around someone like that? A woman
who wasn’t competing with her looks or her talent or her accomplishments?
Wouldn’t you enjoy
the soul-filling refreshment of being around a woman truly at peace?
God enjoys it
too. And He wants you to be that woman.
Stop hiding, dear
butterfly. Stop trying to be so
strong. In your quest for freedom you
find yourself enchained.
Let go of everyone
else’s expectations for you, and even your own expectations for yourself. Find who God wants you to be. Let that be your goal, alone, no matter the
risk.
Then soar,
butterfly. Soar.
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