How do I define success?
My definition of “success” has been changing since my first of
many “failures.” When I failed to do or be what I expected at the time,
I usually spent my time condemning myself and feeling down,
unable to find a way to see me as anything but a “failure.”

A butterfly trapped in a caterpillar life, crawling along the ground,
never realizing that within me was the ability to fly, to spread my wings,
to find the “freedom” I was longing for by letting go of the perceived
safety of my caterpillar persona, releasing all the baggage of wrong
thinking and wrong words, accepting myself as an imperfect person
who sometimes failed but remembering that that did not make me
a failure, it confirmed that I was imperfect . . . but trying!

This change was slow in coming, but I met a group of people who
accepted me as I was, warts and all, and never mentioned my warts.
They drew me into friendships with no conditions and I read a small,
but important book “Hinds’ Feet on High Places” by Hannah Hurnard
and began a journey of healing, of finding me buried beneath all
those layers of caterpillar thinking, and that took me beyond the me I
thought I was to the place where I could confront my fear of “success”
and of transformation and slowly remove the masks to reveal ME!

I came out of a dark world of perfectionism, of material goods
defining me and “success,” and traded a life in a chrysalis
(the hard outer shell left behind after the caterpillar is transformed
into a butterfly) for an often challenging life of growing more fully
to be me . . . still happening.

My definition of success is: choosing my perspective (how I look at
me and life) to be all God wants me to be in whatever capacity He
places me, to be who I am created to be as He leads me which means
rejecting my old caterpillar perspective and accepting my butterfly
status . . . beautiful colors and exploring the sky!
My journey to success . . .
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