My Ambivalent Fallout with a Bush: A Story of Unexpected Restoration

Last December, we had our front and back yards turned into desert landscaping. They went from being full of dirt, weeds, a big mulberry tree that pigeons pooped from, and a thorny bougainvillea, to being full of rocks, desert plants, a smaller tree that pigeons disdain, and a wispy bush with orange flowers.

We were enamored.

And then the weeds started. They got out of control. We tried to fight them, but we had to have professionals come in.

We were disappointed.

The weeds grew, and our citrus tree in back died.

We were dismayed.

The weeds grew, our citrus tree in back died, and the plants in front began to die.

We were disgruntled.

And then the beautiful soft bush that had replaced our sinister bougainvillea started to wilt.

I was disheartened.

Attempts to reach the landscaper who planted the bush yielded little result, and our gentle green plant with the orange flowers succumbed to little black dots we learned were called aphids - or the more visceral term "plant lice".

Every day, I could barely stand to look outside at the yellowed, broken carcass. I felt sickened by the sight of it. Since I wasn't comfortable with this sensation, I repackaged it into feeling livid. I felt abandoned, and that bush was evidence of it.

It's embarrassing how long it took me to realize what I was projecting onto that bush. Yes, I was angry that I could not get help for our yard and for this lovely creation that had saved my children from pricked fingers while framing our house perfectly. But it was more than that. While this disintegration of our outside yard was occurring, my reality was being inverted inside our home.

I felt neglected by my own Creator.

But I knew I couldn't let that be the end of the story. He wired me to be too stubborn to let something called plant lice win this battle.

So I declared life over our little dead bush. In doing so, I prayed that my Creator would again turn His face toward me. I reached out to an advisor who assisted me in taking bold and measured steps to get the attention of the landscaper. It worked: he immediately got to work on attending to the neglect. Today, our bush showed these signs of life:

If you look closely, you can see bright green sprouting out of the brown and yellow. It's a true visual of this song.

It's also a reflection of how I'm feeling: I have my Creator's attention, and He is bringing new life out of my former self. At last He heard; at last He delivered me.

I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor [wo]man cried, and the Lord heard [her] and saved [her] out of all [her] troubles.
Psalm 34:4-6 

In all this, I felt inexplicably compelled to read about how caterpillars become butterflies. We all know they crawl into a cocoon, hang out for a bit, then emerge in flight, right? I even shared one of my favorite quotes about this in a previous post.

Only it isn't true. Well, not for butterflies. For moths and other insects, yes.

But butterfly caterpillars actually harden their bodies into a chrysalis, and then their insides turn into goo. Goo! Here's where it gets even crazier: They have these things in that goo called imaginal discs that use the protein around them to grow into new shapes - legs, antennae, wings. In other words, they were carrying the precursors for their butterfly selves (Version 2.0, you could say) all along. Now that their old selves have been completely destroyed, their new selves can take shape into what they were meant to be all along!

Our Creator doesn't just have one set of 2D blueprints. His blueprints have many layers, and many dimensions. But His vision for us can only be realized when we go through those times of being dismantled, being broken, feeling neglected, crying out to Him. Every restoration story must have a before and a point of change so the after means anything.

I guess this might even require a new term. Because often the type of restoration He has in mind isn't the kind the bush experienced - returning to its previous state of flourishing - but instead into a new form like the caterpillar into the butterfly. So I'm going with a hybrid of restoration and transformation: Restormation.

Restormation is what my friend Rachel in grade school experienced when she lost her straight hair to a disease, and it grew back full and curly.

Restormation is what my friend Aubrey went through when her baby Shalom stopped growing inside her, leading Aubrey to write openly about grief and pregnancy loss to encourage other women broken by this taboo tragedy.

Restormation is what my friend Tammy proclaims as she shares her story of spiritual abuse and gender discrimination, which has strengthened her to be a strong leader and a powerful yet humble advocate for women in ministry.

Restormation is what my friends Renee and Tina and Kit and Brittney and so many many many others live every single day as they declare, "I am a new creation!" and love with the compassion of women who have accepted the reality of their childhood trauma and allowed the Healer to breathe life into the carcass of what was, encouraging countless lives and their own children in the possiblity of what can be.

Whether it's restoration or restormation, we can trust life will come in some way when we seek the Creator and Redeemer. The green will reappear, the butterfly will take flight, the broken heart will feel in new ways. Some work will always be required, and it may even feel like death at times. But our Creator installed His own special kind of imaginal discs in us. Don't you want to see what yours might become?

From the other side of the chrysalis

I've had a few weeks to process the dissolution of our weekly Milkweed Momdays. This past Monday was the first without the Bible study written on my calendar. (To be more accurate, it was written on the calendar, but I crossed it off.)

Through reflections both in solitude and in the safe exploration afforded by the presence of gentle and wise friends, my perspective is widening beyond the sacrifice of my "baby" on that mountain. I'm still grieving the loss of the group, but I've begun to see it more as a change, an apotheosis as opposed to a death.

Here's what I've realized. The Shepherd had been leading me and the members of Milkweed along still waters, instructing us to rest and receive in the cool, plush grass. Many of us were in need of healing, a regrouping in loving, Christ-centered community. One mama told me that she came because, in her words, "I had to." Others agreed with that sentiment, driving incredible distances because they too felt compelled to plunge into the Word and open their souls to one another so as to root down deep into good soil. And we grew up fortified, as Milkweed should be, and we nourished one another and were nourished by our Source.

But that place of respite was not where the Shepherd wanted to leave us. He, who is also the Gardener, wanted to prune us so we could mature and spread. 

Had our loving Daddy not nudged me to surrender the group to Him on that pre-Thanksgiving day, it may have stayed as a place of receiving. But Milkweed has always been His project, and He wanted it - wanted us - to stop taking in and start giving out. Now we had the foundation of relationships, accountability, prayer, and study of His Word, which is what disciple-makers need to follow the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. The Spirit kept bringing this passage back to my mind:

~No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.~
Ephesians 4:14-16 (MSG)

Here's what is so exciting to me: Since we ended the weekly in-person meeting times, many members have reported they have had opportunities to start meeting with other women, sharing their faith, discipling them, encouraging them in their walks with Jesus. The Shepherd is leading us onward, into the dark valleys, to bring Jesus' light out of the 2-year-olds' room at First Christian Church and into the hearts of the lost and the hurting. YAY GOD!

My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God. 
James 5:19-20 (MSG)

I still don't understand all of this, but I am in awe of what Daddy has revealed thus far. And I am riddled with delicious anxiety for what He is going to do next. 

Thank you all for being part of this adventure! The best is yet to come...

~This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!~
Romans 8:15-17 (MSG) 

Cocoons

On November 1 of this year, I wrote in my journal, "I feel like something is about to turn."

The next day, we met for our weekly Milkweed Momday and launched one of our own monarch butterflies, a mama named Jamie, out of our milkweed and into her new adventure.

"How exciting," I mused to my Shepherd. "Now, what's next?"

I felt Him inviting me up a mountain. It looked like a beautiful hike. "Make sure you bring your baby," He told me.

And as I climbed, I realized the baby was none of my three biological kiddos. No, it was the Milkweed group. I was praying over the members, checking in with them, prepping for our time together each Momday, posting to them in our online forum in between groups - what had been His creation had certainly become one of my precious children.

It was then that I realized He was getting ready to do a dramatic reenactment of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, asking me to sacrifice that which I loved so dearly. No worries, I thought, there will certainly be a ram caught in the bushes up ahead.

I invited my prayer pals into the journey, sisters in Christ who have stood with me, holding up my arms and carrying hope through dark seasons, and who have also leapt with me during joyful celebrations. They listened, prayed, counseled, and encouraged me, and I was again reminded of the beauty of authentic, mutual community.

This past weekend, I arrived at the altar. I got ready to surrender Milkweed to Him, then looked around for the ram. There was none. The Shepherd just stood there, arms open, asking if He could have the group. And, with tears in my eyes, I handed it over.

I don't know what is next. What I do know is the peace that I have accomplished what He called me to do in the Bible study/prayer group/play group so many of us have enjoyed. We ladies have entered in pain, confusion, crisis, loneliness; we have abided, cocooned, and most have flown off with their beautiful wings fashioned by the Creator.

And it has been wonderful. 

I have peace I can confidently say with Paul:
~I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.~
2 Timothy 4:7

The online Milkweed group will continue, and we'll see what our loving Daddy has in store as we continue to do community virtually!

I'm going to end this difficult goodbye to our Milkweed Momdays with one of my favorite quotes from Pastor Erwin McManus of Mosaic:

~I don't know if you know this about butterflies, but there's a transitional period when they're still in the cocoon, and they don't know they're a butterfly. They think they're a caterpillar. And in that moment it must be incredibly disturbing to realize that you no longer fit in your home. See, a cocoon is a perfect home for a caterpillar, but it's not the right kind of home for a butterfly. And there has to be a moment when that butterfly realizes that it has new appendages that are called wings, and it begins to break out of its cocoon, destroying what once gave it safety and security, that place called "home", so that it could fly and experience life in a way it had never known and would never know as a caterpillar.~

See you on the other side of the cocoon, my friends.

Trajectory

The videos I store in my head seem to be cataloged into three categories:
1. Life-changing moments
2. Non-life-changing moments that still made an impact for some reason
3. Things that pop up from time to time which I've forgotten about until God has some reason to remind me of them

On my anniversary, I'm playing the memory of standing on that playground in October 2007, shivering with friends and family from the damp coolness as my fiance slides a ring onto my finger.

As I'm hanging ornaments, I'm remembering that weird commercial for a Santa hotline my brothers and I laughed at during our preteen years, singing the jingle ad nauseum for our parents and creating obscure parodies for our own enjoyment.

Today, I had a Category 3 visit. Every time this memory leaps onto my mental landscape, I'm amazed it hasn't taken up permanent residence in Category 1. But I'm grateful it hasn't because it's maintained its potency each time the Spirit has brought it back. Here's the story.

When I was dating a guy I probably shouldn't have ever dated, I was invited to be in a wedding. I had never been in a wedding, and I didn't know what I was getting into, and I'm going to skip that story because I think it has passed its point of being useful for any kind of edification. The end of it was that I was no longer going to the wedding, and I suddenly had my Memorial Day weekend free.

That Sunday, I was at church, responding to a gentle but persistent nudging at my heart. "I surrender," I told God. "Take my life, and do what You want with it."

The next day, I was en route with my paramour and some friends to an amusement park. We had to take a few expressways to get there, and, not being the driver, I had brought along a book to read in the backseat for the two-hour trip.

I looked up just as the driver jerked the car to the right, causing us to fly off the road and into the downhill embankment. We careened through wet ditches and weeds, until the SUV came to a full stop with its nose pointing upward toward the highway and its rear wheels locked in mud.

"What happened?" we all exclaimed in unison. The driver pointed back at the road, at a car parked in the right lane of traffic. No one was in it, but as we scanned toward the waist-high weeds we had just blown past, we saw a figure emerging and tugging at his pants zipper.

Yes. This individual had parked his car in the road to pee. And we should have all been dead.

By God's grace and that alone, our driver had made a knee-jerk maneuver as soon as the car in front of him swiped to the left because of the parked car. Had our driver gone left, we would have been in an accident. Instead, we went right, and the area where we landed was safe enough to "drive" on. We were in a 4x4 vehicle that had not flipped over despite its trajectory, and no one was injured.

A few days later, my beau and I broke up. It wasn't until quite some time after that I put it together that my cry to God on Sunday had brought on this about-face, making us all reevaluate the trajectory of our own lives. I had not been injured in the accident or the relationship, but my loving Daddy had something bigger and better for me, and He needed me to let go of what was holding me back.

Definitely a Category 1 memory.
And after I'm done praising Him for this, I'll go back to forgetting it until He wants to remind me again of His power, His plans, and His faithfulness.