It's Cocoon Season!

So, here we are again... another late sleepless night. I haven’t written in so long, but this new little nugget of wisdom (yea I’m calling it that, I got the grey hair to prove it) has to be shared.

I have spent the last 18months (about) in a strange cycle of stagnation, breaking, and loss. I have tried endlessly to make sense of it, find purpose for it (notice I said for), and trying my hardest to get out of it. Recently, God said, “you are right where I need you to be.” And that left me feeling a whole bunch of emotions, sad (I can’t take more), angry (God, why me?), frustration (I need to understand why), broken (am I really that bad that God is punishing me). The greatest epiphanies also come, well for me, at moments where I am silent. One day I was feeling really overwhelmed by it all and decided it’s probably best that I take a step back in silence...put the dang phone down and just stay to myself.

I choose the name Butterfly for my business because its formation came after a life altering kidney transplant surgery where, while still groggy, I told the hospital staff that I name my transplant Butterfly - to honor the transition of the donor’s life and transformation of my own (yea I’m pretty good even while semi-conscious). Little did I know how that one decision would open up a can of worms... well caterpillars. It was me reflecting on my life and my business and thinking about how I wanted my life to be and how I wanted my business to run going forward that lead me to this amazing revelation... hang on, its coming!

In life it’s always so much easier to focus on the butterfly, we know that it transforms from caterpillar to butterfly, but we always speak of the beauty of the butterfly and how we are butterflies, etc. The focus is always on the butterfly. Last year I remembered saying ‘this is my cocoon season’ (...has it hit yet?)! The Cocoon Season (yes, I am using caps because it deserves it) is the most beautiful thing about the butterfly’s transformation. While I don’t know all the particulars and I am not proclaiming to know all the ins and outs, but the caterpillar doesn’t run from the transformation it heads into it completely unaware of what happens next. It breaks it body to use as a shield during its transformation. Does it know that it will never be the same, I don’t know. Does it feel pain during the process, I don’t know. But why do we always want to skip over the hard parts and get right to the beauty, when it’s in the process of allowing ourselves to accept our Cocoon Season, fully embrace the darkness, the unknown and the breaking so we can fully be transformed.

Thinking on the cocoon phase of the caterpillar to butterfly helped me understand when God said ‘you are right where I need you to be’ because this is God’s plan. I can’t become new if I try to carry the old with me. I cannot be transformed if I don’t first shed the old. I cannot be rebuilt without destruction (Thanks Spark workbook, IYKYK). The reason this Cocoon Season has been so hard is because I never embraced the transformation, I fought it, avoided it, spent more time trying to make it a bad thing but without it I cannot become all that I need to.

My favorite story (or whatever it is) is Footprints, and if you have ever seen it on an image, it is always a beautiful beach, with neat sand...just a perfect scene, there is always light. But a cocoon is dark, things are breaking down (my assumption) and changing and it's not pretty, I believe that it’s in those moments where God steps in to carry us. There is nothing wrong with darkness, God created the dark. God created the light. God created you. God created me. Yup, think on that. We are created in His image and each of us with purpose. Now here is another thought, why do we say we have imperfections when God who is perfect created us? Now shhh, y’all who have been reading trying to critique, I am not saying I don’t fall short but the things about me that society has told us are “imperfections,” the blemish, the body size, how we comprehend, the way we view the world. Our ideas. Our vision. Us. Our differences. Don’t get me wrong the devil is hard at work at leading people far from who they truly are, who they were created to be and is heavily encouraging negative choices... How many of us are walking and living in purpose. Do we truly know ourselves. During this Cocoon Season (nope I’m not out of it, YET!) I have been broken, felt defeated, been ready to give up, have given up, but GOD. God who knew me and created me in His perfection and with His purpose has kept me. He has carried me and is still carrying me through. Yes, it still gets dark, and the storms still come but I feel a sense of calm knowing that God will protect and provide and even in the difficulties I aim to find purpose and approach it with gratitude.

So, let’s embrace our Cocoon Season completely so we can be fully transformed and soar!

Quote: The Butterfly doesn’t look back with nostalgia at its caterpillar days – it embraces its transformation and explores territories its former self could never access. – Pastor Dharius Daniels