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.