Becoming

I’m not going to lie, these last weeks have been odd. Sure, there are new demands and changes to our schedule (driving to soccer 5 nights a week, a new job for my husband, and practical details to attend to with aging parents). It’s not that uncommon for these shifts to be a little off-putting, but the “odd-ness” seems to be more internal. I feel untethered, uncertain, restless, and frustrated. 

In early May, many wise Instagram guides were noticing the abundance of dandelions and the gifts to be found in this tenacious, vibrant yet overlooked “weed”. Fiona Lynne Koefoed-Jespersen from Ordinary Pilgrim offered this prayer, and it caught my attention: “May you let the weed-God disrupt your carefully defined borders.” 

Over the last decade, God has disrupted many of my small, well-contained ideas about faith, expression, identity, freedom, compassion, love, and wholeness. It’s been a wild ride and I have welcomed the expansiveness of it all and see many thriving, bright blooms in my life. This disruption has felt different, more subtle, and leaves me with a host of uncomfortable feelings. 

A year ago, I finished grad school, and though exhausted, I was full of anticipation, dreams, and hopes about what might next unfold in my life. A year later, life doesn’t look much different. The same-same-ness of it has been, if I’m honest, disappointing. As I have let these uncomfortable feelings simmer, God has gently nudged me toward the image of a blank canvas, urging me to ‘wipe the slate clean.’ So I did. The vision board above my workspace, normally full of plans, dreams, images, and motivational quotes sits empty. I stare at its stark whiteness and wonder what it all means. 

The weed-God is disrupting my carefully defined assumptions about my becoming and it hasn’t felt good.

But then last week, I was reminded of the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. This is an image that has held much meaning for me over the last number of years. I realized that in my dreaming and visioning a year ago, I genuinely believed that it was time for the long-cocooned me to burst forth, spread her wings, and fly. That hasn’t been my experience. Instead, my wings feel folded up tight, maybe even stuck. Sharing this with my colleague, she asked, “What do the wings need to unfold?” My body settled as the answer came quickly… “time”. Ah of course.

You can’t speed up the process of metamorphosis. If you try to peel the chrysalis off the butterfly to help free her, you limit her chances of flight (and survival). In the same way, you can’t fast-track or predict becoming. The struggle, the waiting, and the slow unfolding are part of the transformation and necessary to thrive.

That one little word, time, and the image of the unfolding butterfly have been gifts. I can stare at the blank, white canvas of my becoming and, at least for now, feel a little calmer, a little more hopeful, and even notice the spark of anticipatory wonder about who she might become.