Freedom

I don't remember when I first heard about this, but whenever a caterpillar goes through the metamorphosis of turning into a butterfly, it's a kind of death. The caterpillar spins it's cocoon, and nestles itself inside. Then, the caterpillar releases a digestive enzyme that literally decomposes itself into this caterpillar goo. It doesn't just sprout wings. In a sense, it dies. But hidden deep within the DNA are the makings of something new. Over time, it turns and grows into a butterfly.

With wings to fly.

But, if anyone or anything does something to open the chrysalis before the transformation is complete, it ruins the process.

Only time can change it from one thing to another. It can't be rushed.

I've had seasons of my life feel like this. The first time was in college. I had fallen hard in a pit of my own making, and the seed of a new life fell into the deep, dark earth. I remember feeling such darkness, numbness. How could God bring anything out of my sin? And yet I remember, after grace-filled months of being reconciled back to my Father, when it felt like a sprout was peeking, bravely, from the soil. His grace really was sufficient. He really was making all things new. My sin was not the end of my story... turns out, it was only the beginning. The whole trajectory of my life came from that season, my life being made new. When I learned what grace really meant.

Another similar season was after our international adoption fell through. A dark six months followed, and I remember telling God, "I don't see You in this." Hadn't we heard the call to adopt? Hadn't we tried to follow His lead? Yes, we had heard 'adopt,' but then took matters into our own hands. Looking back, we didn't wait for His perfect plan. Not understanding what He was doing, I remember boldly asking Him, after so much darkness, to be blinded by the Light of what was about to come. And when I do the math, I am constantly amazed that at the time of our life imploding, our twins were being conceived and God's story was being written all over their little lives as His knit away in their birthmama's womb. Only days after their coming home from the NICU, I remember Him saying "I love the story I wrote." Blinding light everywhere.

These last few months have felt the same. I've been fighting it. I've been confused by it. But in maybe the last couple of weeks, I've realized that, undeniably, I am in the ground, in the darkness, in the cocoon just the same. A wheat kernel in the ground, dying all over again (John 12). I've tried to poke the cocoon, peek inside. "What's happening in here, Lord? What's it all for?" But there's no rushing it. There's no testing the Lord, asking if His promises are going to be proved or not. There's just waiting, and trusting Him.

Like Joseph. Joseph had visions entrusted to him as a teenager, and yet it took years of testing to prove his character (Psalm 105:19) for the one moment when countless lives had been saved and his brothers - all the sudden - kneeled. Did he gasp to discover the moment of his dreams finally realized? Surely he remembered how years ago his dreams were made up of wheat stalks bowing, how the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed. Visions like that are not easily forgotten, and yet take a lifetime to come true.

I think of Joseph a lot these days. This cocky teen in his many-colored coat, gloating. Pride has to be stripped completely in order to be used so mightily - to save a nation, to save surrounding nations, to bring forgiveness, "for the saving of many lives." Cocoons can come in many forms, and can look like a house owned by Potiphar, a dark and damp prison...

The line I've been meditating on the most for weeks in his story is "Interpreting dreams is God's business." (Gen. 40:8)

Joseph ultimately told Pharaoh what his dreams meant, but God got the glory. Joseph got to use his gifts, but it was God's business when the dreams - whenever they were entrusted - came to pass.

I know it has to do with freedom. One of my Joseph-visions from the Lord is the phrase "set them free." I didn't - don't still - know who, or when, or how. Just to 'set them free.' And yet, He's showing me, how can I do that unless I am free myself? Free to be myself? Free to minister from behind every layer of mask? And how can I do that unless I let Him take them off, layer by layer? And where can He best do that, but in the ground, this cocoon, this hidden space that is so holy. Where He does His best work. Under His shadow. In my heart.

I picked a book off my shelf I had read years ago called "You Are Free: Be Who You Already Are" by Rebekah Lyons. I remember it being wonderful then, and even better again. I read the chapter "Free to Rest" again today and I had underlined the phrase she said she had heard from the Lord:

"Initiate nothing. Watch and see what I can do."

This season of being in the ground, cocoon, has been so confusing, so frustrating, dare I say, so hurtful. Haven't I left everything to follow Him? But now, I find it's not being left behind, as I originally thought. It's not being benched. I'm not a has-been.

I remember being at the kitchen sink a few months ago telling Him in anguish, "No one knows what I can do!" And He said, "I know what you can do. I want to show you what I can do." He doesn't want or need my five-year plans, proposals. What He is planning is "more than I could even ask, think, or imagine." And only He can do it. Only He can write a story like that.

Only He can grow wings from nothing. Only He makes old things new.

This season is a gentle invitation from Him to rest. To 'initiate nothing.' To really and truly rest after a long, hard season of fruitfulness, but also of striving under heavy weights. Weights of expectation and perfection, responsibility and battle. Though I'm still processing how I got to be in such bondage (when did I stop feeling like it was ok to be free?) it's a season of teaching me how not to be a slave after Egypt. It's an invitation to trust Him utterly and completely. A dying kernel or caterpillar soup can't do much but just wait and watch and trust the Creator of the process.

But after the process? After the wait, the rest? After the abiding trust (John 15)...

All these Joseph-dreams will be realized.

And I'll have wings to fly in freedom I've never known.