Psalm 84:11 “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
An egg is laid which develops into a caterpillar. The next stage is a cocoon. In the stage of a cocoon, the caterpillar is being broken down and the adult insect is being formed. Even though this process looks as though it is just hanging by a thread and just surviving, there is a process going on. The cocoon is being spun and changed until it is ready to open up and be transformed into something that does not closely resemble what encased it. The result is a beautiful butterfly that spreads its wings and skates through the sky, drinking sap from all the colors that landscape the earth.
As I listened to each woman open up their hearts to each other, the pain and struggle could be felt throughout the room. There is no hidden agenda or fakeness in a woman who has experienced the loss of a child. All pretenses have been shattered away. What you see is usually what you get. They spoke of a feeling of just surviving, not really feeling like they are living at all. I look at them and see just the opposite. I see them as truly living, feeling life at its fullest, the joy and the heartbreak. They know how it feels to love, only the way a mother can love. They also know what it feels like to feel the loss of that love. They will also discover as their healing continues that this love is not lost but has just been changed.
They too are doing the work of being transformed. They are clinging to their faith and in some instances, questioning what they believed about their maker. They are dealing with anger, guilt, resentment, sadness and all of the hurtful feelings that grief brings. Each woman is looking at what they once thought important and taking inventory and stripping away all that does not matter. These women are not just surviving; they are truly living and understand the frailty of life. Their grief for now has encased them, but God is in the process of transforming them. Do you feel like them, feeling like you are just surviving? Just know that for now you are being set aside and you too are being transformed. One day you will not resemble this grief that has encased you.
