Sharing my life story

I shared this with the summer staff last Thursday at the morning meeting.  I wrote it on July 7th, 2012.


A friend of mine asked me to explain my dragonfly tattoos recently.  And so, I stumbled through my explanation of why Dragonflies are so important to me.  When I finished, she encouraged me to share it with the summer staff.  So, this is why I got five dragonflies tattooed on my neck….

In many ways my tattoos have become a part of my own journey.  As I recently wrote to a very special friend, struggle often brings about something beautiful.  And in many ways that is my story.  I struggled as a child, transplanted from the suburbs of Chicago to a small, Midwestern, farming community.  I struggle in school to be accepted by my new peers, and to find my feet again.  These struggles came to a culmination in 6th grade.  For the next two years, my Mother home schooled me, giving me the best two years of schooling that she could and giving me so much more than that.  In many ways I found myself in those two years.

I would like to say that I was a Christian all those years, but I cannot honestly tell you where my heart was.  I struggled still with my identity, and with deeper issues of self-confidence all through college.  It wasn’t until after my Sophomore year, when I first began to work in Camping at a summer youth camp that I truly believe that I began to pursue a personal relationship with our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Those summers became my life, and I made up or found excuses for five more summers to return time and again to this camp.

This journey also led me to become part of their Internship Program: Leadership in Camping Ministry.  I felt that the Lord was leading me in that direction.  So, I spent the length of a school year working in program areas, teaching outdoor education to public and private schools that came through our facility, loving every moment.  That is truly where my love affair with Dragonflies came to start, with a class called quite simply, Pond Study 101.  The children loved mucking around in the pond, and I found that I loved finding the little Dragonfly nymphs in the ponds around the camp.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the life cycle of the dragonfly, here is a very short lesson.  Dragonflies lay their eggs in the water.  When their eggs hatch they are called Dragonfly Nymphs and they live in the water, eating other insects and most especially mosquito larvae.  When the Nymph has grown to the right size, it has to leave the water, it crawls out onto a stick or leaf or blade of grass sticking out of the water and sheds it’s shell.  This is when they get their wings, and become the beautiful insects that we see flitting around all around us.

So, I fell in love with the ugly/beautiful Dragonfly Nymphs, and their adult counterparts.  And as I thought about it, I began to see an allegory in the life cycle of the Dragonfly.

Now, some of you, I am aware, know of the allegory of the Butterfly’s life cycle, and the wonderful metamorphosis that occurs within the cocoon.  It is a beautiful analogy of our life after we have accepted Christ but I have always felt that while the butterfly does indeed create the cocoon, after that the metamorphosis just happens.  There does not seem to be much effort on their part.  So I find the image of the Dragonfly much more powerful and pertinent to my life.

Think about this, entertain me; A Dragonfly Nymph lives in ponds and lakes, along the bottom of the water.  In the mud and the muck of the only world they have ever known.  Then there comes a time when they have to leave behind the only world that they have ever known.  They must leave the water, crawling up something as shaky and unstable as a blade of grass or a twig.  In faith, they crawl up and shed their former nature.  Completely leaving it behind.  In fact, I was sitting down by the water earlier this summer and looking down, I saw the evidence of this.  An empty nymph shell, that had been left behind.

It is not until they have left their world behind and struggled to shed their previous nature that the Dragonfly Nymph receives the wings that have been growing underneath their shell.  They leave behind the mud and the muck of their lives and become beautiful creatures that flit about on gossamer wings.

It always makes me think of the verse from 2nd Corinthians.  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

They, like us, have become new creations through the perfect plan that Christ designed when he created them.  And he has a perfect plan for us as well.  It may not be exactly like the Dragonfly’s but he is in control, none the less.  But it is not anything that is just going to happen.  We must struggle, it is an unfortunate fact of life.

Hebrews 12:1 makes me think about this as well.  And I took this verse from the NIV translation because of the word choice.  I prefer it. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Let us throw off our sinful natures, and leave them behind as an empty shell of our former sinful selves.

My story, unfortunately, does not stop with that.  While I was still in the internship program I began to feel very conflicted.  I loved camping, I still do, and yet I was getting the sense that God did not want me immediately pursuing a career within it.  I was very confused and frustrated.  I was incredibly thankful for the program director and his wife as they listened very patiently and supported me in my decision.

So, I listened to the Lord and returned home to live with my Mom and Dad.  As I look back now, I can see God’s hand guiding me to where I would need to be, for one year later my Father was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.  I was able to help my Mother as well as my Father simply by being there.  They caught the cancer early and we were blessed to have him with us for another year.  Something that I consider a miracle, considering how aggressive the cancer usually is.  On September 21st of 2010 the Lord Healed by Father, by taking him Home.  Three weeks later, my baby sister got married.

As we all struggled and continue to struggle with the grief that we feel over my Father’s death, I also know that he is in Heaven with the Lord and that he is waiting for all of us.  And that gave me a great sense of peace.  Here again, struggle presented itself.  And the shell that my father left behind this time was his earthly body.  And yes I firmly believe that he has become my guardian angel.  He is singing over me with the Heavenly host, playing a beautiful crystal trombone.  His memory verse is still powerful to me.  It is from Isaiah 40, verse 31.

“But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Up here, where seeing Eagles is not uncommon, this verse reminds me often of my Father, but it also makes me think about my Dragonflies once again.  Sometimes it is a struggle to wait.  But if we wait for the Lord, he shall renew us.  And that is something that I have come to cling to.  While I don’t know what this fall holds for me, or where he is going to lead me from Fort Wilderness Summer 2012, I have come to a sense of peace that his plans are greater than my own; such knowledge is too lofty, I cannot attain it. (Psalm 139)  As I am waiting on the Lord, he has been giving me peace, a job that I enjoy and a place to live among people that I love.

7.6.2012 continued

As I left the dining hall this evening I heard thunder grumbling in the distance, as clouds gathered along one side of my visible horizon.  I gathered my belongings and walked over to the gathering place, hoping to get onto the Internet (it was still down) in time to sit and watch the storm as it rolled through.
I love storms up here.  God doesn’t hold anything back.  There was a loud crack of thunder and then the drops of rain began to fall.  Out the window we watched as hail fell to the ground, followed by heavy and very consistent rain; loud grumblings and cracks of lightning.  Then Ben came and told us to head down into the Lowlands, where our severe weather shelters are.  Keegan sitting next to me went out into the storm and stood on the dock looking out over the water, enjoying the majesty of the storm that we are experiencing, praying and praising god and getting totally and completely soaked.
How long we are going to stay down here, I’m not certain.  Until the storm warning has passed.  While we waited we played games.  Fisrt my new game Quiddler which is kind of like scrabble with playing cards.  And then we started playing my other new games, Story Cubes.  And Jess came up with a character named Princess Turtle.  And now my brain is rippling with ideas about Princess Turtle and her background and how she got her name.  I have Jess's approval to write a story about Princess Turtle.  I can't wait!  Now, back to the game!  What a great way to spend my last evening for a while with Megan Jay and friends!

7.6.2012

So, we've been without internet for about two weeks, so I apologize.  I wrote this on July 6th.


Yesterday was my day off from life in the kitchen, and I was grateful to be away from the heat, at least the heat of the kitchen.  I woke up at least an hour later than if I worked, went and ate my breakfast and went to sit in on worship at the morning session.
What followed that was a wonderful, long-overdue jump in the lake.  I lay quite happily, a noodle helping keep my head out of the water, simply floating in the cool, refreshing waters.
After lunch, I drove into town to do my laundry and enjoyed a good hour exploring an antiques mall that I shall be returning to (hopefully the things I spied yesterday will still be there).  While at laundry, I checked my email to find an email from my friend Brent, who I’ve been tweaking some recipes for.  I got to catch up on facebook and then I wandered around another antique mall, almost losing my water bottle because I set it down in a booth and forgot it.  (Don’t worry, I found it again…after walking the large mall twice!)
The one blight on my day was the sad news that a dear friend of mine on staff here for the summer has made the decision (the right one) to leave and go home.  We got to talk a little bit, and it was good.  We sat near one another at worship that evening and sang together, which I love doing.  I sang counter harmony to her melody.
After worship I was finally able to sit down and catch up with my friend Kristi, who I worked with last summer in the kitchen.  She’s been camping with her family this week.  It was wonderful to catch up with her, sitting in the coffee shop telling her all about what has gone on in my life since we last saw each other a little over a year ago.
I ended my evening in rather hysterical laughter with my friends Keegan and Amanda.  I have not laughed that hard in a long time, over such silly inconsequential things.  It was wonderful!
So, in summation, as days off go; this one was rather marvelous!

A longing for Poetry

I have been hankering for poetry lately.  Off an on I find myself longing for the lines of lyrical words such as Emily Dickinson wrote: “Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, the initial of creation and the exponent of breath.”
These words speak to me, and me being me I left my volume of Emily Dickinson at home.  So I have wracked my brain and found from a previous blog a section of a poem by (welsh poet) that Madeleine L’Engle uses in her book, “A Ring of Endless Light.”  The lines she used intrigued me so much that I searched the library system and requested one of the only two volumes within the entire Southwest Central Library District of Wisconsin.
Those opening lines are:
“I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
        All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
                Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd, In which the world
        And all her train were hurl'd”

The poem, inspired by John 2:16-17 talks about what passes away; pride, lust, etc versus what is eternal.  The closing lines were also poignant.

“Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the Ring,
           But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night
                       Before true light,
To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day
           Because it shews the way,
The way which from this dead and dark abode
                   Leads up to God,
A way where you might treat the sun, and be
                   More bright than he.
But as I did their madnes so discusse
            One whisper'd thus,
This ring the Bride-groome did for none provide
            But for his bride.”

Poetry speaks into the soul, in many ways.  And it has been a long time since I have allowed poetry to minister to me.  And so I find with longing, the desire once more to life the pen and write lines of my own.  Perhaps I’ll post them here, in yet another entry.

Until then, I think I’ll try browsing the internet and find some poems to read.