Ecdysis

Ecdysis.  Moulting.  The shedding of one’s skin for the express purpose of growth or the regeneration of damaged tissue.

My favorite books of all times are C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.  And although The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is NOT my preferred book (The Last Battle is, since you asked), my favorite story line occurs in this book:

Eustace, the rather nasty cousin of the Pevensie children (the heroes of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), accidentally enters Narnia with them, and they find themselves involved in an ocean voyage.  During a stop at an island, he discovers a dragon’s treasure without realizing what it is, and he falls asleep with greedy thoughts surrounded by wealth.

He wakes up, somehow changed into a dragon himself.  Thus begins his transformative and redemptive process as he begins to think outside of himself and desires to become MORE THAN.  It is a touching narrative as he attempts to communicate with the sailors, and his anguish is palatable.  Eventually, his self-pity gives way to a deep desire to be useful, to be in fellowship with the others again.

After the transformation from within expands his perspective on life, he has an encounter with Aslan, where he is shown a pool in which to bathe.  While in the water, he begins to scratch off his scales, and he moults for the first time.  He sheds his skin, and it feels quite freeing…for a time…until he realizes the moulting has not changed his inner essence.  He is still a dragon.  He tries over and over, to no effect.

Until he submits to the lion, allows the painful, compassionate claws to pierce his thick skin and find the tender boy hidden underneath.

Eustace had the opportunity to shed his skin, and he grew.  The damage done to him through his upbringing and his own poor choices…they were regenerated and made new.

And the Pevensie children welcomed him with open arms!  He had been so very hurtful to them, but they expressed joy at his transformation and delight that he had discovered his true self.

I’ve been a Eustace plenty of times.  There’s this saying, “Hurting people hurt people.”  It’s true.

I’ve felt like I’ve lived in a dragon’s body, struggling to fight through it all and to be seen and known for who I truly am….

I’ve experienced ecdysis, and the painful raw, soft skin that results from it…when your protective coating is removed, you are extremely vulnerable and, even knowing that growth or healing will occur, the pain is still strong and very, very real…

And I’ve been a Pevensie, on the other end of a Eustace, wishing he’d find his Aslan, hoping he’ll shed his skin, desiring the opportunity to express my joy in his transformation…

But…you can’t make a Eustace shed his skin.  He has to ask his Aslan to cut into it.  And watching a Eustace stumble and fall is painful, especially when you have walked the path, earned the scars, learned the lessons…

I pray we all live this way…experiencing ecdysis; learning, growing, and receiving healing for our damaged souls…and giving grace to those around us who are in the process of moulting, recognizing the tender skin which is exposed during the time of growth.  Because if you’re not experiencing this process; if you are not growing…you are dying.

WHY?

Why, God?

Have you ever had an experience where you’ve doubted God?  Where you looked at what you went through and thought, “You have got to be kidding me!  How could God let this happen?”

I understand.  I’ve been there more times than I can count.  In some very heinous ways.

I've had a few friends who have opined on the subject matter in recent months, who have offered some extremely different viewpoints.

One, who now appears to be in quite the crisis of their own, said, “I wonder, too, how God could let such evil happen.  I think we need to grasp what pleasure we can find, right here, right now.” 

Basically, Carpe Diem.

That is a path that leads to death.

Another friend offered this wisdom:  “God is much more complicated than we give Him credit for.  He has these plans that are so complicated that they take thousands of years to execute.  Just look at Adam…and how long it took for God to redeem that situation…sometimes it seems like God doesn’t care about you at all, but that’s just because you are sitting in the middle of a Friday.  And you don’t know that there is a Resurrection Sunday just around the corner.”

And THAT Friday, what do we call it now?  We call it “Good Friday”. 

Good Friday.

Blackest of nights.  The moment of death.  When the sunlight disappears…God is there; with a redemptive plan so freakishly complicated that it is beyond our human minds in its time, scope, and depth.

Why does God just “sit back” and allow suffering?  If he allowed a part of himself to suffer, knowing that same part would celebrate that suffering in just a few days, then perhaps there is a piece of that puzzle I can’t yet see.

My dear friend spoke to me about God…reminding me that He is, above all, a Good Father.  And we forget, here on Earth, where all fathers are broken to some degree, what a Good Father is truly like.  A Good Father doesn’t look at one child and say:

I’m allowing you to suffer so you can help my other children through their pain…

I pre-ordained everything that would happen to you, so I planned for you to be abused…

NO!

A Good Father does not PLAN SUFFERING for his children.  He may allow consequences for certain behaviors, but that is a far cry from choosing to hurt your beloved child.  I would never plot to hurt my children…but if they were being disobedient and harming themselves, I would likely allow them to feel the results of their actions, hoping they would learn, change, and grow into their true potential.

If you are in a Black Friday, it’s okay.  Most of us have them.  The vast majority of us survive them.  Please know that there is a Resurrection Sunday.  It may not be three days away, three weeks away, or even three years away.  I wish I could give you some sort of assurance that, sometime in your life, your trials and pain will all come full circle and you will understand them.  But just as Adam, Abraham, Moses, and many others experienced; fruition may be something that happens long after you have left this earth.

Finding God in the Broken Places

Recently, I've found myself floundering once again with the all-consuming questions related to self-identity and self-worth.  “Who am I?” and “What is my purpose?” were questions I thought I had very rational answers to, but suddenly the words I would use to respond became simple rhetoric; meaningless.

Who am I?

I am not who I thought I was.  Am I more or am I less?  Or am I just something “other”, as if I am simply stepping sideways?

There is a danger in spoon-fed answers and spoon-fed responses.  When someone else tells you who you are, and you accept their words as Truth, then what becomes of you when their Truth becomes a lie?

People will inherently disappoint you.  They will betray you, hurt you, anger you…they will create within you every negative emotion possible, if you allow yourself to live in relationship with them.  The alternative is to live within yourself, not sharing, not loving, and not truly living.  Opening yourself up to every single type of emotional pain imaginable doesn’t sound very attractive, does it?  But it also allows you to be open to every positive emotion available; love, passion, forgiveness, empathy, compassion, grace…

Living in full, deep relationships with people puts you on the precipice of the see-saw.  You fly the highest, but your rear end gets dirty when you bump the ground.

I haven’t been able to journal or write for several weeks, as I have struggled over these questions.  For some reason, I chose to look at my blog today, and my eyes glanced over at my “bio”… 

Who am I?

I am a fragile clay jar: pressed, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; hunted, but never abandoned; knocked down, but not destroyed.

My words; borrowed from the Bible.  This is me.  I am not somebody else’s paper doll, to be molded according to their wishes and desires.  I am a unique creation, with inherent value, and I belong to nobody but God. 

I’m a fragile clay jar.  Handle with care.