I cupped the butterfly in my hands–watching its wings gracefully open and close. It’s gossamer sails resembled the stained glass of a country church when the sunlight streams through the kaleidoscope of colors and I oohed and ahhed at its beauty.
Gently grasping black-tipped wings, I settled the creature in a field of clover and watched it for a few more minutes. Holding my hands up toward the sky, I tilted them first one way and then another. The butterfly’s scales had left a filmy sheen on my fingers and palm and I worried. Oh, please, let the butterfly dance in the wind again!
Are you like the butterfly? Have you been mishandled? Mistreated? Have you left bits of you behind where life has brushed hard against you?
Sometimes, the impact of brushing against life has sent me spiraling headlong into self. Self-preservation. Self-protection. Self-pity. And I concentrate more on the marks left on me–those places rubbed raw and left vulnerable–instead of looking to the One who strengthens and transforms me through the ebb and flow of living human.
I’ve forgotten to consider…what sort of impression have I left behind when others see the struggle? Has the whole of the difficult been about me or are other lives different…changed…or even better in some way because in the pressing into and through the hard places something like a spiritual transfer occurred? During those times do people see Jesus in me?
A dear woman I know is beginning her second round of  chemotherapy. Transluscent skin peeks from beneath the covers while Patty tells us this is her second missionary journey. Her life is being swallowed by the great, devouring enemy of cancer, but when she is pressed? Rubbed against? The words that flow from her mouth are gentle and sweet…offering hope and forever-life to other cancer patients…nurses…doctors.
Oh, that I when I brush hard against life I could be a woman like my friend. I don’t think it’s easy. We begin to leave Jesus-impressions when we soak our hearts in His word. His power. His presence. And isn’t that our calling?
Friend, where are you meant to leave a Jesus-impression today?
Blessings,
Tammy
 
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