But She Had Wings

My next tattoo is going to be a butterfly. The butterfly will be flying off of the words...”But she had wings”. You know...the last line from the Dean Jackson poem.

When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been.  But she had wings.

I love that poem. The first time I ever read it, it felt like mine. It felt like me. These words speak to me. They speak of transformation and change. They speak of weirdness...I'm weird. Aren't you?  Weird, unique, special, one of a kind? They speak of the constant voices that call me to be something I am not, something I used to be, something I don't want to be. They speak of something beautiful and weird and delicious and uncertain and scary and exciting and hopeful and lovely and glorious and determined.  These words speak of a transformation that has taken place in me and also to that which I am becoming...because I have wings.

But she had wings has another meaning to me, as well.  It comes from another great piece of poetry--a song really.  My mother taught it to me when I was around 7. The memory is etched into my mind and heart as clearly today as it was so many years ago (surely you didn't expect me to tell you how many).  Every night my mother, beautiful with her dark eyes and dark hair, gentle and gracious as she was strong and brave, would sit with me on my bed.  Here she would open a book and teach me Words that would seep down into the soil of my heart and begin to germinate. She knew what I didn’t yet. Those Words would bear fruit in the years to come.  From this place, she taught me Psalm 91. From this song, I learned and embraced a fundamental truth about Whose I was.

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
This I declare about the Lord:  He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. For he will rescue you from every trap. He will cover you with his feathers.  He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

How my wise mother knew that her protective wings would not always suffice.  I would need the Wings of the One who made me and loves me with flawless unconditional love.  She knew I would need One who knows and holds my future, so that in these days of change and uncertainty and transformation, I could fly, because-- I have Wings.