it’s a chrysalis, always a chrysalis.

I wish it were easier.

No, I don’t.

Okay, sometimes I do.

But then I remember the fire lilly. The fire ephemerals. Those bright, vibrant blossoms that only bloom after devastating fires have ransacked the land. That’s it. They don’t come out any other time. The world would never be captured by their beauty if it wasn’t first captured by fire. 

Can you pray for me? a friend texted me tonight.

Of course, what are you feeling? I texted back.

And then he called. Quickly, I pieced it together. His break up. His devastation. His disappointment. God, it was so familiar. It was like looking at old photos of me. Or not too old photos of me, actually.

“I just hurt. I hurt so much; I can’t get away from this pain…I don’t know what to do…I can’t control my feelings…” he said through his tears.

And then I began talking, telling him that I know the feeling. I still get a somewhat visceral reaction to it, actually, when I remember. To be honest–though, in somewhat lesser degrees, for sure–I still feel it. The pain and sadness and a kind of disappointment that bleeds out until your entire life, as far as you can see, is covered in a kind of dulling, damp sense of waste.

“But I think–I think that God is smiling. I mean–he’s hurting with us when we’re hurting, for sure–but I think he’s also smiling. You know, like, just cause he’s so supremely confident. Because he knows the end of the story…It’s like we’re in this dark place. Maybe we have one match and maybe we remember to light it every once in a while–on a good day, that is. There’s a small pool of light at our feet, but we really can’t see beyond that. But God–he’s got these night vision goggles on, you know? And he can see what the darkness hides from us. That if we just keep walking forward, it’s a beautiful place. Breathtaking, really. Castles…and, and…joy and…well, more reasons to keep walking forward than to stay here. It’s beautiful up ahead, and that’s why he’s smiling.”

And I realized that, even as I was telling this to my friend, I was also telling this to myself. Keep walking ahead, Jess. God’s smiling. Not because he’s lost his marbles and has a kind of far-away look in his eyes that lost its relevancy around the same time churches started decorating marquees with terrible cliches, but because he knows. Because he sees. The whole picture. He has this crazy ability to see the fire ephemerals even while the flames are still threatening to consume me.

And, it’s probably a good thing that nobody ever gave me the choice, but the fire ephemerals aren’t something to be traded in for a fireless, innocuous existence, right? I mean, they’re worth too much.

But still, the pain. It can make for a pretty convincing argument that a fireless, innocuous existence is just what the doctor ordered. That, and some advil pm.

Which is why it’s probably a good thing that I am not given the choice. That it’s enough to know that there’s a lot I do not see; whole mounds of stuff that makes God smile on my behalf.

On your behalf.

And I really don’t like to get preachy. Not ever. But, there’s this phrase in that really old book that just feels so relevant right now. Relevant enough to write it down, right here, even.

Rom 8:18-23: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

That means that the bad stuff around us can produce good stuff within us.

If we let it.

So, let’s let it.

And see what a strange and wonderful kind of chrysalis life’s situations can be.

But, in the meantime, I am so sorry for the pain. And, like I said, like a simpleton who cannot see so far, I really do just wish it were easier sometimes.