Good morning…
Now is about the time many of us head into a slump. This Coronavirus is a marathon, not a sprint, with no end in sight. Our loss of control, routine, and stability is taking an exhausting toll. Add to it the uncertainty of new normal life transitions. Births and deaths. Weddings, divorces, and funerals. Difficult diagnoses and life-changing accidents. Uprooting moves, an emptying nest, and the unstoppable journey from earth back to heaven, for us and our loved ones. The racial, political, emotional, financial, relational, educational, and spiritual unrest can pile up to drag us down, down, down. Yet, in the pattern of a checkmark, what is drawn down eventually comes up, rising higher, higher, higher than before. Might this process be happening to us?
Even without seeing each other face to face, it is as if we are living on the same invisible wavelength. In yesterday’s post, Sixteen Caterpillars, a Monday group friend shared gorgeous photos of the life stages of a monarch butterfly, from dying as a caterpillar, cocooned away from what used to be, to emerging as a winged creature to enjoy the freedom of the sky. The very next day, a loyal church member in our Friday group joined God’s visual symphony, sharing the photo above and the photo below.
“Beauties in Blue Ridge,” was her caption.
As we texted back and forth, important words revealed a deeper meaning beneath the pretty pictures.
“I am working hard on gratitude,” she wrote. “Was in a slump a few days ago – letting the C’s take over.”
“Letting the C’s take over” is a reference to a life-changing nugget of truth we have uncovered together over the years of learning in our living room, week after week. One of our spiritual mentors, ninety-four year old Betty Skinner, lays out “the five C’s” in the book chronicling her life The Hidden Life Awakened. On page 37, authors Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp write:
“There are five basic negative thought patterns, or compulsions, that Betty calls the five C’s – competing, comparing, complaining, controlling, and condemning – that need to be tamed. When you realize you are feeling any of these negative feelings, will you simply tune in and ask yourself which of the C’s might be controlling your thoughts? Then name it.”
By text, my friend instinctively did just that. “I realize much of my negativity came from social media. Comparing how others were still able to have great vacations and large family & friend gatherings. Complaining about posts that I perceive as insensitive or racist.”
“Then, quieting any self-judgement, tame (the negative thought) by acknowledging that this is where your growth needs to happen,” Betty recommends. “Take that habit to the foot of the cross, asking God to transform it. Take it there again and again, leave it there again and again and again, and move forward with your life with hope and gratitude.”
Through persistent prayer, God guided my butterfly-loving friend to take action. “So, I removed those apps from my phone (still have accounts but have to intentionally log on from my laptop so I check them much less frequently). Now as soon as I start down the rabbit hole of negative thought, I focus on gratitude, God’s grace, love, and amazing creation – faith is always a work in progress.”
“It is so good we have uncovered these tangible tools – recognizing the five C’s stealing our joy and learning to refocus ourselves on God, grace, gratitude,” I texted back. “Thanks for sharing your shift in focus, shifting from negativity onto the stunning beauty of these breathtaking butterflies. It is so important to remind ourselves of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit breathing within us. When we feel ourselves in a slump, starting down into the rabbit hole of negative thought, crawling through mud like an exhausted ole caterpillar, we are invited to calmly, quietly cocoon with the God of metamorphosis.”
Metamorphosis is the process of transformation from an immature form of being into a more advanced adult form in two or more distinct stages. From caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly. From negativity, to cocooning with Christ, to gratitude for our gracious God. The opposite of metamorphosis is stuck, standstill, stagnation.
Our negative thoughts – the five C’s of competing, comparing, complaining, controlling, and condemning – offer an interactive invitation, “This is where my growth with You, God, needs to happen.” Again and again and again, we lay down our hard emotions at the foot of Christ’s cross, dying to our old self-defeating patterns, resurrecting into the privilege of flying free, gliding with God on maturing wings of gratitude.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life] (2 Corinthians 5:17, AMP).
…Sue…
