I like symbols. I enjoy how symbols can open my eyes to truth I had not yet perceived. I do try not to get carried away looking everywhere for symbols and hidden meanings and I especially am careful about looking for signs from God. 1 Corinthians 1:22 has always felt like a warning about looking for signs so I have sought to know God’s voice for myself, therefore rendering null and void any need for a sign. And yet, what about those times when God is there-I know it because His presence is always with me-and yet He is remaining silent? There are few things more frustrating in my spiritual journey than when God is remaining silent as it usually happens during a time when I need to hear from Him the most.
I mentioned before how a crisis some seventeen years was merely a catalyst for Jesus to reveal Himself to me in a different way and set my feet on a new path. Coming to know Him in greater intimacy has not happened all at once. It has been an awful painful wonderful glorious journey: one I’ve survived by relying on Him day by day. I recently realized I have seen aspects of His character He has been bringing me to see over the course of the last three years. I can look back now and see how it all worked together for me to KNOW what I know today but, at the time, the butterfly was just a butterfly.
It all started three years ago when my doctor found a lump in my breast. I hadn’t noticed it. It truly felt like it had appeared overnight. My doctor was concerned but not overly so. She thought it could be a result of an ongoing hormonal imbalance and I was to come back in a month and she’d see if it had changed size or gone away. I prayed every day of that month, asking He who is my Healer to take it away. I went back for my follow up visit knowing it hadn’t gone away and having no idea what was going to happen next. Painful and invasive exams were what happened next, culminating in a biopsy. I had to wait a few days for the results of my biopsy and, while there was an enormous chance my lump was benign, there was a chance it wasn’t. I couldn’t think, felt numb, and sought the peace I normally find in nature by taking a walk at the reservoir.
It was a beautiful, warm day but I felt I was carrying ice around in my very marrow. The what if was a whirl-a-gig inside my mind and, although I knew He was with me, He wasn’t making me any specific promises. I didn’t know what to pray for. He is my Healer-I believe that with everything I am-but I couldn’t deny He hadn’t healed me-the lump was proof of that- and I felt my foundation of faith was rather shaky beneath my feet.
I managed to make it to my favorite bench placed right by the water before I felt I couldn’t go any further. I sat there in the warm sunshine, listened to the insects in the long grass, the birds on the water, and just waited in His presence. Surely, alone in this place, He would speak comfort to me.
As I sat, a small yellow butterfly appeared, flitting from flowers to blades of grass. I have always thought butterflies symbols of spiritual truths: their beauty, the way the gland at the base of their skull consumes their caterpillar life and the butterfly emerges from that death (our death swallowed in His life!); they have so much to teach me about walking with God. Thus, I always enjoy seeing butterflies and have never had a moment where I did not feel closer to God when I saw one. I watched that tiny creature, so yellow it looked like sunshine come to life, and waited for a message from God. There was nothing.
I couldn’t help laughing at myself. Perhaps I was looking for too much. Were it a story I was writing, the butterfly would have been the harbinger of great peace and spiritual growth. Instead, it was nothing more than a creature doing what it was created to do. A pretty creature, certainly, but nothing more. The butterfly was just a butterfly. I was not living inside a book. I had no promise from God that I did not have cancer. I had no idea what I might be facing in the coming days. I still had to go home and wait for my test results. I rose from the bench and made my way home.
My results arrived and I did not have cancer. My relief was beyond my ability to describe. Still, the presence of the lump meant my hormone imbalance was more serious than I thought and I could potentially develop severe problems. I turned out I already had and I ended up having a major surgery only a year later. I had not developed cancer but though again I prayed, it was a surgery I was not spared.
And yet, there was never a moment when He was not with me. It wasn’t that I was not afraid nor in pain. It wasn’t that I lied to myself and assured myself there was no reason to be afraid. There was every reason and there were some I hadn’t even considered until I read through and signed my pre-surgery paperwork. Rather, there wasn’t a step I took He didn’t take with me. That fact was something I only truly realize now as I am having some painful complications from that surgery, am having difficulties getting treatment for those complications, and have no fear at all. Irritation at the roadblocks-Jesus does not make me superhuman-but He infuses me with His strength to look into the unknown without fear. How is such a thing possible? I don’t think it would be if I hadn’t had it cemented in me through experience that He keeps his promises and does not ever leave me nor forsake me. Whatever my next moments, days, and years hold, I know that I don’t face anything alone.
Oddly, that little yellow butterfly has never been far from my mind. I was so sure then it meant nothing and yet it has come to be important to me. Perhaps I don’t have to look for signs or symbols. Perhaps He gives them to me and then gives me recognition and understanding when the time is right. I do know I will never again see a butterfly as just a butterfly.
This week I’m sharing a poem I wrote a few years ago. This one was inspired by Proverbs 13:12; Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when the desire comes it is a tree of life (NKJV).
Tree of Life
One thing I have found is that God often means
Something different in His Word than the various things
I think it should mean as I read
And I’ve wondered aloud whether God really cares
As He rarely sees fit to answer my prayers
In the ways I feel that I need
Like the Tree of Life that desire should be
Is not the very same Tree that I see
As I confess His Word and I stand
For it’s my wants and desires I expect will grow
And bear fruit in my life even though I do know
Something different could come from God’s hand
How difficult then to give up my own schemes
And live for the far more beautiful dreams
My Father is dreaming for me
I long to know Life’s Tree for all that it is
Not my desires but all that are His
And become the green branch He wants me to be
I strive to leave behind all the things that I’ve thought
To press into the Life His Precious Blood bought
And to rest in His wonderful shade
And as He chops down my shriveled, gnarled, old tree
Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favorite authors. I was 9 or 10 when I first read “A Wrinkle in Time” and was thus and forevermore hooked on her writing. Through the years, I’ve moved from her-would they be considered Young Adult books?-to her adult fiction, to her journals, to her essays. A short time ago, I found “Penguins & Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Unexpected Places” and, I must admit, had a knee-jerk reaction to the words “Icons and Idols”. I believe I’ve mentioned before I don’t have an extensive religious background but that doesn’t mean those beliefs haven’t made their way into my mental processes. Aren’t icons wrong? Aren’t icons and idols synonymous? Do I have to stop reading one of my favorite authors?
I had already read the The Genesis Trilogy by Ms. L’Engle and had found them beautiful. My faith had grown reading these books and so, trusting Ms. L’Engle wasn’t about to let me down now, bought this book. I have never been sorry that I did so and, like every other book written by Madeleine L’Engle I have read, this one made me sit down and peruse my own life. Did I have icons in my life? If I did, was that wrong? Did I (gasp) have idols? How could I know? What was the difference?
In my attempts to answer these questions, I first, I looked to the dictionary definitions of icon. My Second College Edition New World Dictionary of the American Language give me: “an image, figure, representation.” The Webster’s New Reference Library: An Encyclopedia of Dictionaries stated “a religious image painted on a panel.” I have seen icons fitting these definitions and appreciated them as art but they’ve never inspired me to pray or worship. There is nothing in those painted images that remind me of the vibrant apostles who were flogged, jailed, stoned, driven from cities and towns, and, in some cases; killed. Neither have I been transfixed by any image of Jesus. How could I possibly be so? What image could ever compare with He who is utter livingness as revealed in Revelation 1: 10-18? The answer then is no: by these definitions, I have no icons.
Madeleine L’Engle has a personal, more extensive definition of Icon. She writes; “What do I mean by icon?…I am not thinking of the classic definition of icons so familiar in the orthodox church, icons of Christ, the Theotokos, saints, painted on wood and often partially covered with silver. My personal definition is much wider, and the simplest way I can put it into words is to affirm that an icon, for me is an open window to God. An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God and God’s demands on us, el’s mortal children, than I would otherwise.” (Page 8) And then: “If something does not lead us to God it is not and cannot be an icon.” (Page 10)
By this definition, there are many things I would consider icons. Waterfalls, rivers, oceans, mountains, ravines, the sky overhead…all at one time have revealed some aspect of God to me that sent my heart soaring in worship and praise at the greatness of His love. On a smaller scale, I suppose I would say turtles are an icon. From their shells to their slowness to their determination, I see in turtles something that reveals who God is to me on this spiritual journey. So then yes: considering an icon as an open window to God, I have many such icons in my life.
If I say I have icons, do I then have idols? Just what is an idol? Can an icon become an idol? It seems that yes they can because Madeleine L’Engle also writes, “You may not turn an image into God, because that is to turn an icon into an idol.” (Page 14). Before I can worry about whether or not I’ve been turning my icons into idols, I must understand what an idol is.
Returning to my dictionary, I find the following definitions for Idol: “an image of a god, used as an object or instrument of worship.” It seems to me that, to turn an icon into an idol, the heart of the matter (literally and figuratively) is worship. The Second Commandment says “You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall now bow down to them or serve them.” (Exodus 20: 4-5a)
I suppose the fact that I have a turtle pendant would mean I possess a graven image but it was not given to me as such nor do I worship it. I see aspects of God revealed in nature but that doesn’t mean I become an Animist. Do I then believe that, as long as they do not become idols, icons are acceptable? I live in a world I perceive with my senses. How else is an invisible God going to reveal Himself to me except through the works of His hands? Romans 1:20 says “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world.” It is not idolatry to find God in His Creation as long as, I think, I do not stop with the creation but continue to look through that window to Him.
Madeleine L’Engle writes “Jesus should be for us the icon of icons. God sending heaven to earth, ‘Lord of lords in human vesture.’”(Page 93).
Jesus as The Icon. I admit to a bit of knee jerk reaction at that thought as well. And yet, Colossions 1:15 does state, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” so perhaps the thought isn’t sacrilegious after all. While it doesn’t hurt to give my life a thorough examining, perhaps I will merely thank Him for revealing Himself to me no matter how He chooses to do so. And, I can thank Him that I don’t have to stop reading one of my favorite authors.
The quotes were taken from “Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Unexpected Places” by Madeleine L’Engle published by Shaw Books in 2003.
Hello! Thank you for reading. I have written another post where I have expanded on some of the ideas touched on in this one. If you like, you can read it here.
It’s another poem today. I do have other types of blog posts planned but I’m still in the researching/planning phase and, now that I’m back at work, that’s slow going.
I’ve mentioned my car accident in an earlier post and spoken a little of my traumatic brain injury. I’ll spare you a litany of my ills but will say life with a TBI is difficult. These difficulties combined with the chronic pain from my other injuries makes it easy for me to get overwhelmed. I was feeling overwhelmed this weekend because of a task I had to complete and wasn’t sure what to do, how I’d find the information I needed, if I’d even be able to complete it, and a poem began to form.
I’m calling this one Idiom and wish to note this poem is in no way intended to condone the eating of elephants 😉 Rather, I hope it encourages anyone going through a difficult time.
Renaissance Woman 
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