When butterflies cocoon, it is the end of a life stage.
When our lives change, it is the end of something. It is also the beginning of something else, something potentially more beautiful.
Even so, no matter how good the result might be, we can’t see it. Changes bring identity shifts. We experience loss and we grieve.
One of my friends is a nurse. Well, she used to be a nurse. Now she’s a stay-at-home mom with three kids. When I met her, she was pregnant with the third. Because of family commitments and provincial regulations, she was unable to find appropriate work to keep her nursing license and had to let it go. She was grieving this loss – loss of identity, loss of options, loss of an accomplishment she had worked so hard to achieve. Her husband would say, “But what you’re doing right now is so important!” He was right, of course, but what she wanted (needed?) to hear was, “I know, sweetheart. It’s hard to let it go.”
Another friend had a similar experience with her teaching credentials. Because of their family situation it didn’t make sense for her to keep teaching, yet with a Masters degree in education, it was painful to release the career, the work. Never mind the conviction that it was the right thing for this life season; she grieved the loss.
Sometimes the grief comes from dreams unfulfilled, constantly choosing to let go of one hope for another. I wrote about that in a previous blog post called My Wailing Wall.
There’s a poignant scene in the movie Alice in Wonderland (2010), where Alice, a critical decision-point, encounters the caterpillar Absalom as he is spinning his cocoon.
Absalom: Nothing was ever accomplished with tears.
Alice: Absalom, why are you upside down?
Absalom: I’ve come to the end of this life?
Alice: You’re going to die?
Absalom: Transform.
It’s often hard to trust the process of transformation—or the God of the transformation process. But it’s crucial and necessary.
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