Butterfly

The meaning of the butterfly has become significant over the last year and a half. However, it's significance has become more special to me since I came to college. A few weeks ago, I was sitting on my bed with a close friend telling her part of my story. When I was done, she looked at me and smiled and told me I needed to get this tattoo. 

I know many of you might be against tattoos and your reasons for that are real. For a long time, I told myself I would not get this tattoo because people had put this unspoken expectation on me that if I got a tattoo, I was a "bad" missionary kid, and it would hinder people from accepting the gospel. However, the butterfly represents the part of my story that is largely unknown but beautiful. 

For me, the significance of the butterfly is three-fold. 

• Change is beautiful. Everyone experiences change and as a missionary kid, I experienced a lot of it. Now that I'm done being a missionary kid, I become increasingly aware of how much this change impacted me. During my later years in high school, I yearned for stability and consistency. I really wanted to avoid more change, but I had no control over that. Change is hard; it's uncomfortable and inconvenient and painful and unknown. Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar literally dissolves in the process of becoming a butterfly. But after that painful transformation, she comes out as a butterfly, she is free, she is a new creation. 

• The butterfly is not ashamed of being a caterpillar. Last year I really struggled with anxiety and depression. Many people had no idea how much I was struggling. Part of my anxiety and depression was caused by change, although there were other factors as well. In the moment, I didn't know why I was feeling this way, I just knew that it was scary, isolating, and I didn't like it. I've grown so much in my Spiritual life in the past year and a half. I've found freedom, found healing from my depression, and learned how to handle my anxiety. Just as the butterfly understands that she would not be a butterfly if she was not a caterpillar first, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I struggled with these things. I would not be who I am today if I had not gone through that dark time.  

•  (This final aspect developed during my first semester at college.)                                                                  "He has made everything beautiful in its time," Ecclesiastes 3:11. Nobody sees the work, the tears, the pain - they just see the beauty that comes as a result. The butterfly is known for its delicacy. Yet within that realm of delicate beauty, the butterfly displays remarkable strength. We've already established that inside the cocoon, the caterpillar goes through a very uncomfortable process to become a butterfly - known for its beauty. While in the cocoon the butterfly endures a period of waiting. Waiting is so hard. We often don't talk about the grief that accompanies seasons of waiting. We usually think of grief in reference to change and loss. But there is so much grief that comes in seasons of waiting. I recently wrote in my journal, "There is so much confusion and doubt in seasons of waiting. Especially when you thought you heard God so clearly and you took that step of faith and now - silence, waiting, nothing. Waiting is so hard - so isolating. When you're in between new seasons in life, you're searching for an answer, for healing, for clarity, for help." It is during seasons of waiting that the most transformation takes place. However, transformation is internal, meaning most people can't see it happen. Waiting. Is. Isolating. I am reminded of Psalm 139: 15 which references a secret place. The caterpillar is alone inside the cocoon - alone during the most uncomfortable experience of her life. No one else sees the transformation taking place. And yet there she waits, expectantly, to become a butterfly. (Maybe she knows she'll become a butterfly and maybe she doesn't) But, in that secret place of pain, confusion, waiting, God sees the butterfly. He is present in that secret place of waiting. I wrote in my journal, "What if waiting is synonymous to stillness? Rest? Contentment?"