Coming Back To Life

 Sitting across from one of my mentors as lunch, I am struck by her observation and reminded once again that the progress those on the outside see versus what I often feel like and see on the inside are two entirely different stories. Moment like these are reminders to me of just how needed such voices are to help us put our journeys in perspective and realize that we are growing, changing, moving forward much more than we probably realize. She's only been on the trek with me for a couple of years now, yet her work in mental health and her own journey have given her the ability to know and understand more than most people I've known for a longer time. It became easy to share and trust and confide in her because she got it. Right from the very beginning.   

She's telling me how much she see I've progressed these last months... that every time we meet now, it's as though I am a bit further along in the journey toward healing and reclaiming my life from the trauma I've endured. She acknowledges the hard work I've put in and the patient perseverance I've exhibited on the way. But then she tells me that, as I've been sharing with her today, she's sees a great resemblance between my story and that of a particular flower. 

It's called the Corpse Flower for a reason. Though it is actually the world's largest cluster of flowers arranged on a stem and has one of the longest life spans in the botanical world (30-40 years), it got its name for the simple reason that it rarely blooms. On average, it puts out flowers every 7-10 years, going dormant in the time in between. This rare phenomenon of blooming only once in a decade or so creates great anticipation among those who know this plant because they wait for its blooms to appear with such expectation and excitement. And only those who really study it often get to see it when it does flower because its blooms are often gone after a mere 24-48 hours. This seems like a shame, especially when folks have waited so long for it to show up, yet it also invites the observer to pay attention and not miss the moment. 

My mentor ties this metaphor together by equating my story with the dormant period of the plant. The work, the experiences, the healing has been happening in the hidden places, out of sight from most who are merely looking in. But, for those who have prayed and supported and listened and watched this journey unfold, they are getting excited because they can see signs that I am coming into bloom. I am coming back to life. 

I can't say she's wrong. These last seventeen years or so of my life have kind of felt like a death of sorts. A death of my innocence, a death of my dreams, a death of relationships, a death of my identity, a death of my normal as I once new it. Yet, in that dying has come another necessary thing: the death of those things also killed the parts of me that were bound in fear, shame, doubt, and faithlessness. In the shaking up of my world, I encountered radical grace and love that changed me forever. In an exchange I'll never totally understand, I became healed because I'd been wounded.

I've started to understand that this is part of the mystery of God: it's in the breaking that He mends. Fail to be wounded, and you fail to identify with the One by Whose stripes we are made well. For just as His victory was won through His dying, so our own dying is the opening where the Light and the Love get in. 

The longer I've journeyed with Jesus, the more I've come to grasp the idea of resurrection. His act of rising gave birth to a new hope by which stories like mine can be redeemed. All the trauma, all the pain has become a conduit whereby Grace can have its way. And the ugly things which have been written into the chapters of my existence are no longer useless because they have been reclaimed and used for good in the hands of the Master. The dormant periods are not in vain because He is just preparing to bring me into bloom at the right time. 

And talking of time, healing is its own time. Force a plant to bloom ahead of its own readiness and you force an early becoming. Force a butterfly out of the cocoon too soon and it will never learn to fly. Rush the transforming process, and you rush God. You rush yourself. You rush a renewing that is on its own schedule, waiting to burst out when everything is aligned. 

So here is my heart, its own Corpse Flower. I have felt all things dead and dormant for so long that I admit to my mentor that I'm having to relearn what it feels like to be alive. Yet, there are signs that the blooming may not be far off. And while only a close few may see it, they are watching with great joy and anticipation. While I don't intend to go back into internal dormancy as quickly as the flower itself, there will probably be more times in the future when that may happen. But I am not afraid. I know how this cycle goes: the flower will always emerge. And for now, I too wait for the bloom to appear and as it does, I will praise the "grace that brought me safe thus far" because that same Grace will always lead me home.