Sometimes I really don’t like being a human. It’s a lot of trouble. I don’t like change, and that just keeps happening, like, ALL THE TIME. Like for my WHOLE life. It’s ridiculous, really. And then I have to change to keep up with the changes. And I really like to just do whatever I want whenever I want to do it, and for those things that NEED to get done, well, I like to do those on autopilot. Change requires me to think. Change requires a lot of work. Change requires a lot of uncomfortableness. I’d prefer to be a sloth – take lots of naps, wake up for snacks, and poop once a week…perfect!
But I have to keep in mind that OTHER thing about being human: how I feel after I’ve changed. How I feel when I’m not uncomfortable anymore and I know more than I did before. I’m better at being a human than I was before. I’m able to look back at where I was and see how far I’ve come. I’m able to share with other humans what I’ve learned. I’m able to comfort other humans who are drudging through the same uncomfortable changes. So my humanity desires the life of a sloth, but God wants me to be more like a butterfly. He wants me to embrace change and go through it with Him. He wants me to crawl with Him, as a caterpillar. He wants me to grow with Him, as a chrysalis. He wants me to soar with Him, as a butterfly.
Some changes are small, and not really that important in the grand scheme of life. Like when I was 7 and the post office changed all the addresses for our route, so I had to memorize a new one. Or when I was 8 and my parents got a new refrigerator. Both of these things caused me great mental anguish at the time. But they didn’t have a huge effect on anything else (except as being evidence of how much I hated change and that I was terrible at dealing with it).
Some changes are big, and require a lot of work to accept. For me, these changes usually end up with me hitting a bottom and having to crawl my way back to the surface and my new reality. The first bottom I hit was a spiritual one. After many years of searching for God, I finally found Him. But not at all where I expected. After years of smiling on the outside and crying on the inside, of trying to control everything else so that I wouldn’t lose control, I finally gave up and asked for help. And God brought me into a personal relationship with Him. As a caterpillar, I longed for a personal experience with God, and I envied those who talked about their experiences with Him as if He was alive and right there with them. I wanted to believe He was real, but I wasn’t sure because I had never seen Him myself. When I finally cried out for help, He answered. He brought me to a safe place where I could get to know Him, and get to know myself. Reading, praying, sharing with others, seeing His work and feeling His presence. I’m still learning to fly spiritually, but I know God is real, that He is with me, and that He loves me.
The second bottom I hit was an emotional one. It came about seven years later. Even though I had been walking with God, I was still not so great at dealing with myself or with other humans. I was a doormat, a martyr, a control freak, and a complete emotional wreck. I cried out for help again, and God answered me. He brought me to a safe place where I could learn healthier ways of communicating, of living, of being in relationships with others. I learned I had choices. I learned I would be ok no matter what. I learned to set boundaries. I learned how to care for myself. I learned how to say no.
The most recent bottom I hit was physical. I never got back to my healthy weight after having my second child, and I continued to gain slowly over the last six years. I tried to exercise, but that always made me think I had a license to eat anything. Then I started feeling really weak and tired and found out I had low iron, so I cut back on exercising but still kept my terrible eating habits. Instead of making sure I took my iron supplements every day, I’d eat more when I felt weak and tired (even though it didn’t help). I hoped that once we moved to Japan and there weren’t fast food restaurants on every corner, I would drop the weight easily. That didn’t happen, so I signed up for Noom. I have loved the program because it focuses on the mental and emotional aspects that affect our eating habits and choices. I’ve definitely always been an emotional eater, but in the last few years, food had become an idol. It was my go-to for celebration and for sorrow, and every emotion in between. But God brought me to another bottom when none of my clothes fit anymore. My doctor had been telling me for three years that I needed to lose weight, but I disagreed. Once I finally accepted it and was ready to make a change, it didn’t seem so scary or impossible. And God has been with me every step of the way.
As a human, I hate hitting bottom. It’s painful. It’s difficult. It’s uncomfortable. It’s FULL of changes. I wish that life were easy! I wish that there was no drama, no struggles, no changes. But as a butterfly, hitting bottom is the thing that brings me life! How can I hate the things that taught me to fly?
Bible verses to consider:
Genesis 28:15: I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
Jeremiah 33:3: Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.
Isaiah 43:19: See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone; a new life has begun!
Ephesians 4:22: You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:1: As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
Ephesians 4:14-16: Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Exodus 20:2-3: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
