Genius 32:24- 28(ESV) And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Some days I feel like Jacob. This month has been tough because my youngest son was diagnosed with profound hearing loss in both ears. For the hundredth (perhaps more) time, I wrestled with God again. This wrestling, though, was really just a reminder of the fall-out I had with God years before. We all wrestle with God, and that is ok.
On the collection of all worldly wisdom, Facebook, a friend posted for her daughter, “You know the sad thing about butterflies mama? They can’t see their wings. They don’t know how beautiful they are.”
Do you know what else people can see that the person who has it can’t see? A limp.
It’s not so beautiful as butterfly wings though.
After Jacob’s encounter with “the man” – either an angel or God – Jacob walked from then on with a limp (Genisus 32:31-32). It’s hard to hide a limp unless you try to do a funky swagger like one guy I know did. He would saunter into a place like he owned it, and no one knew he had a limp. I noticed some people even tried to mimic his uneven gait thinking the guy looked so cool. But when he ran doing sports, everyone discovered that his swagger was actually a limp. Then they asked how he got it. I never thought I would want a limp, but he almost convinced me that it was desirable.
It’s like the man I know who had the most relaxed crooked smile I had ever seen. It took me over a year to learn an injury caused it to his chin that healed wrong. He wanted to have surgery to fix it. I was horrified though because his smile looked so great that way.
Butterfly wings and a swagger… that’s what this article is about. A blessing or a wound caused by a private battle so powerful that changes you to the point that everyone notices. Many of us have been there. Some of us are still there.
In 2011, I had one of my biggest battles. Yes, even after the events I described in “Fluffy Poofy Faith” (that happened in 2009).
In 2011, we were still living in Scotland and had run out of money in the middle of my husband’s Ph.D. My oldest son was just over a year old. Most sensible people would have quit, moved safely home to be with family, and start over. We are not most people… nor sensible… as I have come to learn.
My great idea that I presented to my husband was: “Hey! Why don’t we give up the lease on our apartment/flat and take up every single conference and scholarship you can get this summer so we can live, and you still do your Ph.D.?” Somehow that seemed logical at the moment. What could possibly go wrong?
I cannot describe those three months in a thousand words. It was kind of like the Iliad and the Odyssey. Still, here is the summary: We flew to Germany for a month to stay with some friends’ parents in their mother-in-law suite. Kerry went to St Andrews, Scotland, to present a paper and then flew back to Germany during that time. Then, we traveled the Rhine, flew to London for a conference, flew to Florida to meet my Dad’s fiancée, and then flew back to London. From there, we took a bus to Oxford and stayed in a room above a pub for a week. After that, we took a train to Shropshire and slept in a 100-year-old barn for another week. We traveled to London on a train and took another train to live in Paris for a month. Our luggage exploded on the way, but we made it to an apartment we found on Craigslist (hoping it wasn’t a scam). After that month, we took another train back to Scotland to move into a brand-new apartment. A week later, we flew back to Florida for my Dad’s wedding and then flew back to Scotland a week later.
It was the best of times and the worst of times. We saw the world and ate A LOT of cereal. During this trip, we discovered I was pregnant again, and so my beloved European adventure was colored by a needy toddler and morning sickness. But it was great! Really. Full of Facebook perfect pictures and envy-worthy outings.
The next day after getting to Edinburgh, I had my first sonogram and discovered I was a month more pregnant than I thought, was having twins, and my cervix was open. I was placed on bedrest in the hospital on and off again for a month. Finally, I gave birth at 20 weeks to two healthy boys and watched them die in my arms 30 minutes later.
The world just stopped.
Grief is a strange thing. Everyone grieves differently, and every loss affects you uniquely. I have mourned two great-grandparents, four grandparents, my mom, an aunt, three of my husband’s grandparents, and his uncle. This time, I was crushed. I have never felt grief that was so over-powering. I was tired from our months of travel and emotionally drained until I was running on fumes. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t function.
Once I was home and somewhat physically recovered, I walked miles around Meadows Park in Edinburgh with my oldest son in a stroller like some kind of mad woman. It was nearly a quarter of a mile around it, and I made furious laps until I was exhausted. I did this for months. Once, a lady selling coffee in a booth on the path laughing told me that she had seen me pass by six times that day. I told her it was seven. It wasn’t usual for me to do more.
I did my laps because I was angry. I didn’t doubt God’s existence. I had been through the faith-shaking and the foundation breaking when my oldest son was born prematurely, and my mother died. I knew there was a God, but I want him to explain himself. It wasn’t fair for me to go through yet another life-altering traumatic event. I joined Job in saying, “Come and face me like a man!” (Job 23:1-5, 31:35) Ever been there?
Honestly, life-altering events don’t ever end. This wasn’t my last rodeo either. I have had a few more since then, including the one I am dealing with right now. It’s like a bad movie playing over and over again on a long airplane flight. You can’t escape it or prevent it (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; 7:14). Dadgummit! Each time, though, we respond differently.
Often we can’t see how the grief is changing us… how God is changing us, but others can (Romans 5:3-4; James 1:4). It isn’t a public show, but the results are undeniable (2 Corinthians 6:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:4). The wrestling happens in secret, at night, alone, but the next morning everyone wants to know what happened to you (Psalm 30:5; James 1:2-3). Sometimes in our lives, that night of wrestling can take days or months or years. Jacob shows us that it is still ok.
Some Christians are afraid to get angry at God (cue cardboard Monte Python god throwing lightning bolts at the little people who annoy him). The idea of wrestling with God scares them because it seems irreverent, but the Psalms are full of the anger, pain, betrayal, and wrestling we sometimes do with God (Psalms 13:1-3, 42:3). I would argue that God wants us to confront him, to speak to him directly about what we think. God doesn’t just tolerate it; he invites us to do it. After all, he had his own wrestling in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44; Hebrews 5:7). Jesus cried out to his Father while sweating blood. He didn’t really look forward to dying on the cross. That’s a wrestling match!
I felt like Jacob, though, in my wrestling. He was facing the possibility of Esau slaying his whole family as he returned to his homeland. Why bless him with a vast family just to take it all away? I asked God the same thing: why bless me with two little boys just to take them away? Jacob’s past, present, and future were tied up at that moment. I sympathize with not wanting to let go of God after a simple spat. There was very little from my past struggles with God that compared to this conflict. It wasn’t about trusting a complicated God vs. the god in my own image as before. I had trusted God blindly and felt betrayed. Every bit of fight in me was in this. I needed the fight, to scream, cry out, and rage. I wanted God to show up. I wanted to know that I wasn’t forgotten. I didn’t care if I went lame doing it. If this is the way you are grieving, it’s alright. It is part of our journey with God (Psalms 56:8). Most heroes in the Bible confronted God at some point. Just look at Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-12), Hezikiah (2 Kings 20:3), Job, Jonah, and David(1 Samuel 30:4, 2 Samuel 15:30, 2 Samuel 18:33).
“You know the sad thing about butterflies, mama? They can’t see their wings. They don’t know how beautiful they are.”
Butterfly wings aren’t automatically given to the caterpillar. He has to struggle for it and fight for it. First, a butterfly must struggle to get out of its crystalis alone. If you help it at all, you will damage their wings. I never wanted to be a butterfly. It always seemed like too much work. It’s like trying to get in and out of a sleeping bag in winter. It requires serious acrobatics and a few strained muscles going both ways: sliding into the body shaped sack, zipping it up to your chin by bending your arms in unnatural directions, and then getting out again when you can hardly move those same arms. I have heard that the caterpillar actually turns into some kind of goo to accomplish this. Seriously gross!
But the butterfly isn’t done once they emerge. Their wings are still shivered up messes. For at least a day, they must hang upside down and beat the crystalis with their scrunched up wings until blood drains down into them. Then the outside of the wrinkled, moist wings must stretch out and dry. Beating the wings also causes the butterfly’s muscles to strengthen for flight.
My over-active imagination sees the butterfly as camper, awaking inside his tent in which someone has put a warm cup of coffee next to him. The smell wakes him up, eager to start the day, but he is stuck in his form-fitting sack. As he wiggles and squirms to get his arm up and find the zipper to the sleeping bag, the lack of space in the tent causes the camper to roll into the toothpick-thin poles. The tent crashes down around him spilling his hot coffee. The aggravation at losing his beloved coffee motivates him to hurry and pinch his skin in the zipper. The camper’s temper continues to flare as he thrashes at a furious level, emerging red face and angry. He then beats, kicks, and wrestle the sleeping bag until he has exhausted his anger.
For the camper, his passion last minutes; for the butterfly, it lasts two days. Considering that the average lifespan of a butterfly is about a month, this is a massive percentage of its life. It’s like hitting a punching bag for eight years or so for an average human. That’s some serious wrestling!
Jacob didn’t just wrestle the average neighbor next door either. He wrestled a supernatural human – all night long.
For the butterfly, there isn’t a short cut. They have to beat the crystalis with their wings until they are finished developing. You can’t do the work for the butterfly. The butterfly has to have the struggle. It’s part of its growth and development.
I am not saying death is a good thing. Far from it! This article isn’t about why bad things happen or even about my conclusions in my wrestling. I still don’t understand why it happened. All I know is that wrestling with God is both ok and necessary in our lives (1Peter 5:7). I didn’t want to be the same person I was before my twins died. It was too important of an event to pretend it never happened. I want to be changed by it, but how I changed depended on me. Do I face God with it, or do I run from it? I will change somehow. It was just that sort of life event. Will I be bitter with wrinkled-up, useless wings that don’t work, and a limp that draws pity? Or will I wrestle and confront God with my feelings to work out the pain? In doing so, my wings will grow, and my limp will be my swagger. I can’t see my wings nor my limp. I don’t know what it looks like from God’s eyes, but I do know when I needed that wrestling (Ephesians 6:12). I knew I needed to face God with my anger.
The difference between Job when he lost everything and his friends is that Job talked directly to God with his “unholy speech.” Job was the one counted righteous, not his pious friends. They didn’t ask God why he had acted as he did. They just assumed they knew. Job talks directly to God. He accused God of not being fair. God responded that until Job could do what God did and see from God’s eyes, he would never be able to understand. This wasn’t a dismissal. Job couldn’t see his wings or limp either, but the confrontation produced beautiful blessings afterward.
I know beyond a doubt, I will see my twin boys in heaven, but the pain is still pain (1 Thessalonians 4:13). It’s my limp, my wound that everyone can see even if they don’t know what caused it. It is also my wings that help me be something different and better (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). It motivates me as a parent, causes me to be more compassionate, taught me to listen more. After my time in Europe, with all my ups and downs, I could never be the same again in hundreds of ways. I was angry at God, and he showed me compassion back through many of his wonderful people (Psalms 147:3). The scars will be there, but they may not look like scars to everyone else.
It’s interesting to note that at the end of the story, Job was given twice as much as all he lost, but not twice as many children. He only receives the same number of children more. I personally believe it’s because his previous children were still counted and remembered even though they were gone. In heaven, Job had twice as many children as before his trial. Children, no matter how long we have them, are a blessing. At least that is where my wrestling took me.
Again, that doesn’t explain away the loss. We each find comfort and resolutions in our own way, but if we don’t struggle, we won’t heal or find those answers we need (1 Timothy 4:8). Grief can produce something beautiful, a blessing, a new name, perhaps even a promise of future blessings when directed towards God (Romans 8:18), but often with a cost. Like Jacob, I still carry scars that will never go away (Genesis 32:31). I wrestled with God and man, and now I am different. I just can’t see it, but maybe you can… and perhaps that’s the point.
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