Today's post is written by Kristen Kill, the editor of Mom Heart Online. She lives in New York, where she and her husband squeeze grace, beauty, missional living, a crazy dog and the homeschooling of four kids into a tiny Manhattan apartment. She writes about her own pilgrimage as a wife and mom and feathering her nest in the big city at Hope With Feathers.
I had one of those mornings a few weeks ago when I woke up and felt my comforter snuggled around me and longed for the continued weight and shelter it provided. I wanted to tune out the buzz of our morning and just cocoon up for a good long while.
We’ve been studying butterflies and their pupas, watching our wee caterpillars eat and eat and eat before they snuggle up too, in their comas, wrapped warm. When they emerge as new creatures, they’ll have wet and weak crimpy wings—like my babies when they were laid upon my stomach, slathered wet in goo, chilled, ripped from comfort and their familiar cramped place of nourishment.
We snuggled each of our children close in those early days, put little knit caps on their bald, balmy heads…we tried to help them adjust from the warm familiar womb. And all the cooing and swooshing sounds, all the rocking had to slowly woo them to their new world. There was no way to rationalize with them about the beauty their new life would hold-about the wonder and experiences that awaited them-about the tastes and smells and love to come. There was no way to express that one day they would actually long to spread their arms and legs wide and be completely naked on a sheepskin rug- they were too much missing that crimped up existence- and so we rocked and soothed and swaddled.
On this morning, waking, I didn’t want to face my wet, wimpy wings- didn’t want to allow the chill of the cold air to infuse them with strength enough to fly. I wasn’t quite sure I could fly! Change was apparent, and I knew my wings were there, but I wasn’t fully convinced they would work. Does the butterfly know they will be okay when they are thrust out of their warm shell? I was craving someone to swaddle me, to rock be back and forth- to coo in my ear a promise that this change, this emergence, was good—that I would recover and find wonder outside the womb.
And here's the thing... I still need this. I need to be reminded.
Letting go of our past, letting go of our crinkled up, tangled mess is pretty hard to do alone. I need community, I need those who speak the truth of who I am and who God is on the days when I want to crawl back under the covers and can't remember on my own. I know others need to be reminded too. If you find yourself a little like me...a little afraid to get out from under your comforter, hear and know the still small voice of God whispering to your heart. May today, with fireworks blazing overhead clanging freedom's song be an even greater celebration of what is true in your heart: You are meant to be free. You are meant to be made whole. "You are a new creation! The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" - 2 Corinthians 5:17
From Isaiah 30:15 (Emphasis mine)
"The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God-" --Did you hear that? You are his child. "You did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons (and daughters) by whom we cry Abba! Father!"
He is a Father who holds and carries and comforts. A Father who frees.