This post was birthed simply by all the challenges I have been facing. Real pain seems to create real posts.
It is for sure an ENCOURAGEMENT to see what the DISCOURAGEMENTS of life can produce- like how rainbows come after the storms of life.
I saw a good observation on butterflies. People talk about this amazing transformation into a new creature as this simple thing. A caterpillar decides it wants to be a butterfly, so it enters this cozy cocoon, has some wings glued on, and magically it flies away.
Reality is the caterpillar gets dissolved first, broken down entirely and is created into a beautiful butterfly. It is not something that evolution could explain, and something that takes a supernatural miracle. This is not a post to prove God exists (as I am a bible believing 100% Christian YET in the rejections of life I will doubt God myself. So I can’t be too hard on anyone else.) BUT I am trying to say that we often go through the greatest painful processes in our lives because God wants to transform us. The caterpillar had to die in almost every sense of the word — it’s plans for the rest of it’s life was radically changed, if it entered with a fear of heights it was soon too late for that, and if he had plans to eat everything in sight before the move, he could only wait until he became the hungry, hungry butterfly.
I hope this blesses someone else who may have said the transformation process is not worth it.
I think of a song I heard, “Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t give out, and don’t let trials and temptations make you doubt.”
I know what it feels like to want to just give up not just on your dream, but in life in general. I get a dream to start blogging and read how there are folks who made over $100,000 a year blogging. I try 5 posts and am ready to give up because I am not making that yet.
And I am sharing this to encourage others to not simply just throw in the towel.
It will just create more laundry anyway.
We moved into our dream home 18 months ago with a solid plan and about a 17 month emergency fund. And a month later my full time pharmacy manager position ended. I jumped into a independent pharmacy and brought 80% of their business the first 3 months but they still struggled and laid me off. I took 3 per diem jobs at the 3 K-Marts in the area- And one by one the doors closed. I took a job as a clinical pharmacist doing consults over the phone -it was 60% of a pharmacist salary and still the company replaced almost all the pharmacists with nurses.
Before that I had three full time jobs and when my hiring managers left each time the new person forced many of us out the door.
I say all that to say, don’t quit.
And if you didn’t quit only because you were fired instead, don’t quit now either.
I don’t know where this is all heading. I am already blogging but don’t know how to translate that YET into money to pay the tolls let alone money to pay the mortgage. But I am not going to give up.
If there is someone here on the verge of giving up, don’t quit. It is always darkest before dawn.
And sometimes, I have found, it takes a leap of faith to reach the widow of opportunity.
I don’t understand it all right now- but I pray I can encourage someone to not give up their dream.
And if people don’t believe in your dream, don’t take it personal. Life has a way of discouraging most people’s dreams along the path we are on. The caterpillar likely started to question this process just as he started to turn into goo. I could imagine him/her going, “I did not sign up for this. This does not feel good. I am alone in this cocoon and now I am being turned into a big disgusting mess. How will I ever escape this now? It’s over for me. I should not have been so foolish.”
You know what I just found out? It takes about 2 weeks for the butterfly to emerge from that very messy situation. Maybe our mess will turn around quicker than we think if we just can embrace the cocoon for a moment.
Know life may discourage your dream, but it won’t DESTROY your dream. It just takes the process of not trying to reassemble that broken down caterpillar.
Just Keep dreaming- just keep dreaming.
And keep going.