Hatching

When I was little, late elementary school, I got a butterfly habitat for my birthday. You ordered the caterpillars and they came in the mail. You got to watch them spin there cocoon and then you had to transfer them to a big box so that when the hatched they had enough room to fly as butterflies. I remember the day they began to hatch out of their cocoon. I sat at out kitchen table, head resting on my arms, as one by one they wiggled and wormed their way free into a new life they had never dreamed of during their little caterpillar days, they spread their beautiful wings and flew. Guess what? I'm feeling a lot like those butterflies right now. As my college days recently came to a close I was freaking out. My parents are cutting me off, I don't have a job or a place to live, my friends lives seems to be moving on without me and I'm left thinking I'm going to be stuck in caterpillar form forever, sitting in the dirt. I was trying to trust God but I felt as if I had failed God. An opportunity for mission work had come my way and after much prayer I had turned it down. I had lots of reasons for doing so but since then I have felt as if God was looking down on me saying "Well, I tried Taylor but you obviously are a lost cause." I felt like I was drowning. Drowning in school, drowning in life, drowning in disappointment. Then something changed. I was sitting in church on my last Wednesday night in college. One of my friends had just rocked my world. I was basically pouting on the front row of church. Whining to God about why things weren't going my way. Then a small phrase popped into my head, "I open at the close." Yes, if you're wondering where you've heard it before it's from Harry Potter as he walks willingly to his death. "Yeah," I thought, "this has no baring on my situation at all." but then, there it was again, "I OPEN at the close." well, maybe the close doesn't always mean death, maybe it means the closing of a chapter...what if I, me, Taylor, open at the close of this chapter? I feel like the light bulb lit up, the angels appeared and the "Hallelujah Chorus" was sung. I OPEN AT THE CLOSE! It's not the end! It's the beginning. That day I began pushing against my enclosure - everything I have thought I would do after college everything I've thought my life should be began to crack. You know in movies when the main character has an epiphany and they begin running, most of the time they have no idea where, and they just keeping running? Yeah, that's me, and I'm running. It's like God is pulling off the shell and laughing that I thought I could ever stay inside that cocoon forever. He's saying go! Be free, tell the world of me, spread those beautiful butterfly wings I made for you. So I will. I write this first off to free my mind, but also because I want to encourage you, whoever you are, to push against what ever is enclosing you. This is different for everyone so don't think it's a once size fits all cocoon. But here's the deal, everyone is enclosed in something at some point but not everyone allows God to free them from it. So whatever is enclosing you, push on the walls, and you may find God on the other side. -Taylor