Caterpillars and Dial-up Internet

Our WiFi was ridiculously slow last Wednesday. Baker looked at me and asked, “Is this what dial-up was like?”

Waiting is not something we are accustomed to, today. We are a society frequently defined by convenience and instant gratification.

On a seemingly unrelated (but I’ll tie it together...I promise) note...

A common random theme that has surrounded Baker over that past week has been butterflies. Everywhere he looks, from his morning devotional, to his reading work from school, to his science work from school, to our family walks, to our pastor’s sermon this morning, the theme of butterflies/caterpillars keeps popping up.

In my experience “random themes” tend to be God’s way of tapping us on the shoulder.

Let’s be real. When you see a caterpillar do you stand in awe of its beauty?

If one crawls across your back porch, do you take a picture? Do you stare with wonder at the grace with which it inches across the ground? What if one falls from the porch covering and lands on the side of your drink? Do you grab your phone for a selfie?

Or do you notice its awkwardness? Do you get a little queasy thinking about it landing in your sweet tea? Do you wonder if it’s one of those poison ones like you saw on Facebook?

Do you see its future state, or do you fixate on its current condition?

I see the caterpillar exactly as it is right now. “Don’t touch that!” I holler to my curious kids. It’s not welcomed on my drink, on my skin, or in my house. The stranger it looks, the more I fear the unknown. I don’t like it. It’s gross. It creeps me out.

These last few weeks have felt like that.

Like a big, fat, juicy, creature fell out of the sky and straight into our laps. The really weird looking kind...the slimy and spiky kind with fur and horns.

Like a whole rolling swarm (that’s the actual term!) of gross weirdness just came out of nowhere and took over.

We look at our current condition and it’s absolutely surreal.

What we forget, though, is that the end is far more beautiful than the beginning.

We are NOT meant to know when this all will end...so we can go back to business as usual.

We are meant to use this time to to draw closer to our families and our God.

The caterpillar becomes the butterfly that my son and daughter chase through the pasture as they giggle with delight and pray that one will land right on their heads. I grab my phone to take a picture. I post it on Instagram for the world to see.

It takes time.

It can’t be rushed or forced.

The metamorphosis is a delicate process.

And when we attempt to speed things along, we destroy the beauty that is intended to emerge.

The trash heap that seems to have befallen us all, WILL produce beauty...in His time.

That’s hard for us. We want God to operate with WiFi service when it feels like He’s operating through dial-up...or worse...a carrier pigeon.

His thoughts are not our thoughts. His perspective is not our perspective.

The end-beauty will not come through impatience and wondering when this will all end. The questions where we allow our mind to fixate, influence the peace in our hearts.

The beauty will come with our willingness to believe that what comes next is unimaginable beauty.

It comes with our willingness to ask what we can do with this time to glorify Him.

It will come with us asking what we can do to serve those around us.

It is time to wrap ourselves in the cocoon of His promise, pour out our love, and trust that we will emerge a new creation.

25Donna Rial-Baker, Sharron Hayward and 23 others

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AND know...

 Some thinking during my morning run (got a pretty pic during my run too):

Every time I’ve heard Psalm 46:10 I’ve heard two instructions:

1. Be still.

2. Know that He is God.

Seems pretty clear.

But what if He wants us to read it differently right now? What if the emphasis should be on the “AND”. Not two directives...just one.

Time, right now, seems to be moving at warp speed and simultaneously standing completely still.

Many of us are under orders to “shelter in place.”

We are schooling our own children, and we are working from home.

Everything seems so uncertain. The world has come to a screeching halt.

Be still.

But do you see Him in the stillness?

Do you know that He is GOD in the stillness?

When we have NO control over anything, and we are forced into the stillness, do we still KNOW that He is God?

Like...the same way Luci KNOWS Dave will pick her up when she falls? The same way Baker (in all his science knowledge and life of anxiety) has absolutely no fear in all of this because he KNOWS we will provide for him?

Are we able to be still AND know that He is the almighty...who knows the plans he has for us...to give us hope and a future?

Can we find a way to welcome the stillness...and in that stillness, find a way to KNOW that He is God?

41Donna Rial-Baker, Margaret Christensen and 39 others

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Your "Only" Is MY Everything

 YOU feel great and don’t see what all this hysteria is about. Cool.

I’m NOT panicked. But we (Luci and I) are quarantined...like for real haven’t left the master bedroom since Sunday and haven’t hugged or even been in the same room as my husband or son since Friday morning when they left for work and school.

I’m doing it to protect my immune compromised 4 year old daughter with asthma who already has viral pneumonia with 105+ fever and was hospitalized until Sunday and has now been sent home and told to completely quarantine until further notice.

She’s still not 100% better, but she’s getting there. And she’s definitely better enough to be restless and ready to get out. Have you spent an hour in ONE room with a restless 4 year old not allowed to leave? Have you spent 6 days? Not in a whole house...one room. One. Room.

I really hate it for all of you who have been super inconvenienced because all the fun shut down. I get it...you’re not at risk so it really stinks for you.

I’ll tell you this though...it doesn’t stink as bad as medical quarantine. The masks you have to wear...The air purifier that sounds like a jet engine in the room...Being told to stay 6 feet from the door at all times.

It doesn’t stink as bad as only communicating with a doctor through speaker phone and a window. And when the doctor and nurse do come in (as infrequently as possible) the gowns and masks and face shields terrify your child.

It doesn’t stink as bad as being in a hospital and having to take your child’s temp every 2 hours and measure her urine output and recording and reporting so as to limit contact with the medical providers.

It doesn’t stink as bad as having to maintain complete distance from the rest of your family in the same house for days and days.

It doesn’t stink as bad as being told by the pediatrician to please NOT bring her in for the post-hospital follow-up appointment...that she’s safer at home.

I don’t say ANY of this for pity. We are safe and loved.

I just say this as a reminder to those who think this is just silly...please consider...maybe you don’t see how this is about you...but when it becomes about someone you love, perhaps you’ll wish we had worked harder to ALL be in this together. Maybe then you’ll see that the fuss was about ALL of us, all along.