Seeing the “Ladybug” In Others

Recently, Cindy and I attended a special retreat at the Transforming Center (no we’re not “transformed” quite yet, this takes time…like a lifetime) at a Franciscan monastery just outside Chicago. We heard great speakers like Ruth Haley Barton and Robert Mulholland speak on “For the Sake of Others.” The focus of the teaching was that spiritual formation or contemplative practices are not so we can be “navel gazers” but rather “radically abandoned to God in order that we can be radically available to others.”

Mulholland taught on the concept of “cruciform love,” that the true character of God was expressed more powerfully through the cross of Christ than any other event in history. As we gaze upon the cross, we will see God more clearly and be able to see others more like He sees them.

I returned to my room after the morning session on Monday and noticed some little bugs that I had not taken the time to “see” since I was a child full of wonder at the world. It may have been a “coincidence” but in my new way of seeing things I choose not to believe in coincidences. This little bug with “her” (not all of them are female) companions had come into my room uninvited.

Almost without thinking I wanted to pick the ladybug up, put her in my open hand and say, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly, fly away.” Why didn’t I want to squish this bug like any other species of bug I would find in the room?

As a little child I was taught that these little creatures were “good” and they deserved our respect and support on their life journey. They were to be appreciated with their bright red bodies and black spots. They were to be watched with joy as they flew away.

A little curious now, I decided to go online and find out something about ladybugs. I discovered that they eat harmful soft-bodied bugs that suck the juices out of plants. A ladybug can eat up to 50 aphids a day! There are almost 500 species of ladybugs in North America and over 5,000 species in the world! In Europe during the Middle Ages they were experiencing a pestilence of bugs destroying their crops and the Catholic farmers cried out to God and the Virgin Mary for help.

Soon ladybugs appeared and came to the rescue and the crops were saved. They were since called “Beetles of Our Lady.” The wings represented the Virgin’s cloak and the black spots her joys and sorrows. They saw in every ladybug “a little savior of their life-giving sustenance."

So, I reflected about the way I was taught to see the ladybug as opposed to other bugs. I didn’t ignore them or abhor them. I valued them and respected them, even sent them on their way with a gentle puff on the palm of my hand. What a picture for me in how I need to see others who come into my life uninvited. I instinctively often ignore, see as insignificant, or I criticize, judge and seek to distance myself from them.

This is not how Jesus sees them or me. I want to see others more like that. I can’t manufacture this change in myself but I can admit that I am not there yet and ask that He lead me progressively into His perspective. I am a slow learner but I long to follow Him on this joyful journey.

Looking to the Lord of the Ladybug,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Glorying in What My Mom Couldn't Do

It has been twenty Mother’s Days since my mom died. I had no idea on that Mother’s Day in 1991 that so soon the breast cancer she had been battling for about three years and appeared to be kept at bay, would return with a vengeance in the fall, and by February of ’92 she would be gone.

Today, Thursday May 5th, is the National Day of Prayer and this Sunday, May 8th, is Mother’s Day. So I am feeling a need to remember my mom but also to recognize the power of her prayers on my behalf.

My mother lived her life as the ultimate “glory in the ordinary” person. Like many moms, she stayed at home with her kids and gave up more prestigious or lucrative opportunities so that she could be there for her children.

Being a child of the fifties and sixties I took for granted what most children today are not able to experience--a mom who was simply “there.” Being there meant humble service as a nurse, cook, clothes washer, chauffer, teacher, tutor, counselor and advocate. I read somewhere a study that put a monetary value on all the things moms do and it came up to something like $100,000 a year. I think it is more like the Visa commercial that says, “priceless.”

It must have been so frustrating for my mom when I hit my late teens and I was making some stupid choices. Skillfully combined with that I had an attitude of entitlement and ingratitude for the years of sacrifices she had faithfully made for our family. That wasn’t easy but I did my best. I worked hard on it. Then to create even greater distance between us, she was beginning to follow Jesus Christ as a real disciple and I know I wasn’t. Conviction.

She would let me know occasionally her concern over the direction I was heading and I had learned to “tune her out.” However, what I had no defense against was…her prayers--especially when she ganged up on me with her praying friends. Now that really wasn’t fair.

So now these twenty plus years after her death and some forty years after my self-centered, self-destructive later teen years, I honor my mom not so much for what she did for me (though I am truly grateful!) but especially for what she couldn’t do for me.

She called upon a Greater Power who could work on me from the inside out, not from the outside in, as she tried to do before she learned the secret power of prayer. She pleaded with Him to reveal Himself to me, for me to know Him myself as she was coming to know Him.

My mom’s life powerfully speaks to me today as a father and grandfather who finds myself increasingly looking at my children’s and grandchildren’s lives from “the sideline.” I often want to run in there and get in the game with them but know I can’t. (As a football fan I can remember that not working out so well for old Woody Hayes when he stuck out his foot from the sideline, tripping an opposing player!)

The irony that my mom’s life has taught me is that when we realize the need to pray and call upon the One who can do what we can never do for our loved ones, then we through our prayers, offer to them what they really need the most, the Living God Himself.

Thanking God for the Legacy of a Praying Mom,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life you may just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.