A Butterfly’s Journey

Finding Freedom through a bull thistle.

“I noticed the way you reacted to the death of your cousin and I can see that you are very fragile right now. I believe this move will be good for you.” These are the words of a woman that recently found out my husband and I are moving. We’ve been living in a small community in northwest Ohio for the past five years. We announced to our church this past week that we are being appointed to another church and would be moving at the end of February. We have gotten a variety of responses to this announcement but these particular words caught me off guard. 

There is some truth to her statement. This move will be good for me, for us, but not because I am fragile. In fact, I think I am emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthier than I have been in my entire adult life.

We arrived in our current community just short of five years ago. The move was as unexpected then as it is now. I was not excited about it. The biggest reason I didn’t want to go was the fact we were moving further away from our family. A second reason, I had been asked to help lead the discipleship and leadership groups where we were, and I was really looking forward to the opportunity. I wrestled with God over it for the first several months and I remember crying out to him, “This move better be worth it! I better see something happen!” I could not have anticipated what God would do. My prayer had been about the people we were coming to serve. The answer I got was about me.

Unknowingly, I have struggled for years with shame that I had been carrying since I was a young girl. It has affected so many of my more intimate relationships and led me to some very personally destructive behaviors in my early adult years. And, though I have long since quit those behaviors, the shame continued to grow, and I found myself carrying so many burdens that I was never meant to carry. These burdens so weighed me down that I had become a pent up, frustrated, ball of rubber bands. I was bound by my shame and bounced around from one thing to the next trying to find something to release me from this pain that I knew was there, but didn’t quite fully understand. 

At a retreat years earlier, we were asked to draw a picture of an image God was giving us. The image I drew was a dresser drawer. There were three drawers. Two were stuffed full and closed tightly. The third was slightly open with clothes starting to spew out of them. I knew as I drew this picture that God was asking me to open the drawer and let the contents come out. Yet, I couldn’t quite let myself do it. I was so very scared of what would happen if I did. What would I find? How much pain would I experience if I opened this drawer? I wanted to risk it but I stubbornly held it closed for many more years. Moving to the small village of Fayette in NW Ohio was apparently the key to helping me open that drawer and allow the rubber bands that were holding me so tightly be stretched by the Holy Spirit.

The past five years, in what I would call a necessary wilderness, has given me the space and room to unlock a lot of misunderstandings I had about myself and some of my more important relationships. During this time, I have spent significantly more time in the Word where the Holy Spirit has gently led me to see what I had been doing to myself. During the covid shut down, I also took a deep dive into reading and understanding the enneagram, which has been a tool God has used to help me see where I had gone astray and believed lies about myself and my relationships.

One I particularly have misunderstood is my relationship with my father. During this wilderness time, my dad slowly faded away because of dementia. There were many moments during our time caring for him that I found myself feeling like the little girl trying to escape the tension I felt in his presence. What I discovered, was a dad who loved me the best way he knew how and even much better than I ever gave him credit. I can now grieve the father that truly loved me, and find a deeper more intimate relationship with my Heavenly Father because I’ve let go of the ties that had bound me. 

A few months back, my cousin, who is an artist, sent out his regular monthly newsletter and I opened it to discover this beautiful picture of a butterfly drawing nectar from a bull thistle. My heart skipped a beat as I took in the image. It so captured how I have been feeling about my time in Fayette. A butterfly must struggle to move out of the cocoon. If it doesn’t struggle, it’s wings won’t be strong enough to fly. My wilderness time has been my struggle to break free from the cocoon I had wrapped myself in. It was the barrier that had kept me closed off to close relationships. To caring more deeply for the people around me. If I stayed in my cocoon, I didn’t have to venture out and learn to really know people, or even like people. I could sit back in my “cocoon of righteousness” acting like I had it altogether and judge others for things that I was unwilling to see in my own self. It was a terribly lonely existence. I don’t want to live in that place any longer and I am so glad that Jesus has set me free from it. He gently encouraged me to do the hard work, break free from those burdens, and begin to fly. What a gift!!

The other aspect of my cousin’s painting that struck me was the bull thistle where the butterfly drew it’s nectar. It just so happens that the little town where I’ve been living has a one day festival each year called the Bull Thistle Arts Festival. How ironic that God’s appointment for us, where I didn’t want to go, would be the very place where I would draw spiritual nectar for my life. Now, I can confidently move to the next community, stronger, healthier, and ready to share God’s transformative nectar with anyone who might want to receive it – a spiritual pollination.

So, as I prepare to move on to the next chapter, I want to thank Fayette, for being a place where I found new freedom. For being a place where I learned what it means to renew my mind, and to live out this passage,

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Romans 12:1-2 (NLT)

Thank you God! Thank you Abba! For making that move worth it and for indeed making something happen. 

Are you ready for your butterfly journey?

As part of my journey, I became a certified enneagram coach. That is part of the nectar God has prepared me to share. If you are ready for a deep dive into what motivates you and makes you who you are, I’m here to help. Just use the tab below to take the first step.