Morphing…

It happened again. The draft disappeared on its own. This was one reason for my silence since last November. The other was that I felt quite tired of my own despair, and posting about it. The past six months since last July had been a difficult journey of rediscovering my identity, vocation, and purpose in life.

The circumstances around me have not changed. However, I believe something has changed within me. Each cycle of despair, self-doubt and questioning was an opportunity for me to gain clarity regarding my identity and to exercise more control over my thoughts and emotions.

LORD, I need wisdom,
to know the fine difference between doing what I should do, and resting in You,
the difference between resting in You and indifference/denial/inertia.

I feel I’m morphing (this word just popped up out of the blue)… shedding the old case(s) which perhaps I should have disposed of long time ago. Or perhaps not. It’s all in God’s time. It dawned on me that God may be shaping me anew, yet I kept living in the past, in accordance to my past identities.

2020 has changed many lives. And it has caused me to rethink about what’s truly important. My passion and what I thought was my calling seemed to be not important or relevant in times like these anymore. The past months have been a process of stripping down to the bare essentials – the core of my identity.

What have I stripped myself of, although incomplete? Past accomplishments, and the identities that have been formed because of them. Past disappointments and dreams yet to come true.

“How have you been lately?” A colleague asked me today. “I think I’m more at peace with myself regardless of circumstances, as I learnt to yield more, to relinquish, to trust in God and to live in the present.”

A couple of months ago, I was waiting for the unknown future to unfold. That, on hindsight, might have been what was robbing me of the joy and contentment in the present, because my hope was placed on the future, as if the present was dismal, when it actually was not, if I were to rest contented in God like a weaned child.

The daily dying to self is a good spiritual discipline, beneficial for our heart, mind and soul.

Die to self — daily.

Something prompted me to do a search on the word “morph” and I was brought to the question, “How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly?” According to the website , it says, “To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests itself.” I cringed.

DISGEST ITSELF?!!

It continues with, “But certain groups of cells survive, turning the soup into eyes, wings, antennae and other adult structures.”

It’s time for a new season of life. To do so, I need to “digest” myself, leaving only what is essential to transform the digested “soup” (all my past experiences and identities) into something new, as I allow God to do what only He can do.