Saturday, our family became a part of a peer group of deaf/hard of hearing families. It felt good to talk to other parents and to hear from others that understand. It was the first time that I remember where I spent more than fifteen minutes around two people signing. The group covers every approach to dealing with hearing loss, but most chose total communication – sign and speech.

What was meaningful to us was the chance to work through our grief. In all the information I have read to date, it is normal to grieve hearing loss for months. It is also normal to go through the five stages of grief repeatedly. The number one thing we could do to work through our grief was to meet other families with deaf/hard of hearing children, especially families with hearing parents. In this case, the suggestion has proven true – in some ways it feels like a warm sunbeam. It turns out that a family is five houses up the road – single mom, four deaf children, very organic/natural, and a great soul. For my wife, it was good to not only find a hearing mother of hard of hearing children, it was good to find one that holds similar parenting/life choice beliefs.

My wife used the analogy of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon to describe her feelings and it serves as a metaphor to describe my own feelings.

The Struggle with God
See, I don’t struggle with the existence of God. I don’t even struggle as much with bad things happening to me. Most of the time, my struggles are the result of my own foolish actions or unwise choices. How can I be angry at the universe and/or its creator if I create 90% of my own dramas?

What upsets me is that God has the right of non-disclosure. He has total perspective, but he does not need to share any of it with me. He can keep a secret and make His decisions in secret if He chooses. I know that God works for the good of those that are called according to His purpose, but he gets to see the end of the story before I do. I read Job and I think, “I can’t believe you did this to Job and never told him why. Job would probably curse you if he found out that the source of his troubles was a stupid bet. If not him, then I certainly would. Are You in a bet regarding my life, now? Is that why you keep these big secrets from me?”

As such, my emotional reactions to difficulties tend to start with ambivalence to God. I figure that since God already knows the outcome, He has already worked out the best possible one. This, of course, frees Him from any accusation from me, so why bother? His answer can always be either, “my ways are not your ways” or “if you had My perspective, you’d understand that what is happening and will happen really is the best possible outcome for everyone.” So I ask if He can impart a little of this precious perspective with me. His answer tends to be, “Of course, my son. You’ll understand in time.” At this I usually tell God that I tend to gain this perspective after all the junk already occurs. I ask Him if He’s talked to His son lately about what life is like for those of us that DO NOT LIVE OUTSIDE OF TIME. Being outside of time, I continue on, You can see that I have already learned my lesson, worked through my aggravation with You, etc. etc. The problem is that I am not there yet. Again, this perspective thing is a real issue with me.

God then usually reminds me that he is not Douglas Adams. He isn’t using weird verb tenses to talk about our life together or to talk about my present difficulty.

So I laugh – not because God can paraphrase Douglas Adams (as ironic as that is) – but because I fear that I am not talking to God at all. My first reaction is to belive that this is proof that I really am just talking to some construct in my mind that I call God. God doesn’t reference the Hitchhiker’s Guide to anyone else. It sounds like something I would say and if God’s voice sounds like my own, maybe I really am crazy.

Then I laugh again because if God didn’t use the Hitchhiker’s Guide, I wouldn’t really listen.

I know full well that I am putting words in God’s mouth as I wrestle with Him. You would think that this puts Him at a great disadvantage. (It doesn’t.) However, something about Him comes through either in nature or Scripture or both. I may never know exactly what He would say to me if I heard His voice as clearly as I hear my own, but I can know something about His thoughts by what He has done already.

The Point of the Title
There is a biological reason for butterflies to struggle out of their cocoon. If a well-intentioned person removes the cocoon too soon, it hurts the butterfly for the rest of its life. Spefically, working through the chrysallis forces blood into the entire surface area of the wings. Without the struggle, the wings do not gain the strength or health needed to allow the butterfly to fly. Somehow, God has created each cocoon to be just the right strength for each butterfly. Some emerge sooner than others, but always after the necessary refinement to their wings.

My wife and I had a long talk yesterday. She was feeling distant from me and was frustrated by this. I wanted to get upset at her because I am generally weary of all our other difficulties – so I just want to be left alone. I get frustrated that I makes 49K gross, yet three days after payday we are broke. I get frustrated that I am seeking professional help with my struggles with my denomination past and present seemingly to no avail. (And no, leaving doesn’t automatically help.) I get frustrated that my wife and I greive over my son’s hearing loss in different ways and that somehow I am the bad guy because I tend to greive faster. I get frustrated that I have to pretend to be busy some days at work. I get frustrated and these and many other things. But most of all, I get upset that it appears that all of this is caused by my inability to let go.

So I understand that she is feeling neglected by me.

Yet in all of this, God does not let me out of the chrysallis too soon. It’s not because of lack of concern, but because He is truly aware of what is happening.