Post from a Pupa

Image courtesy of biology.knoji.com

I was asked to describe the overall experience of my first semester of nursing school.
As much as I like to think that I am a writer, I am truly at a loss for the words to describe the experience(s) that have been this semester.

Transformation is the first word that comes to mind.

And what portrays transformation more than God's divine illustration of a butterfly?

This image is a butterfly pupa. Several, actually.
Some are just starting their process of turning into a butterfly, called molting.
"Green", I believe is the term for these newbies in the back.
Some have flown away from their cocoon, having no need for the white shells they left behind.
The one front and center, though, is in the thick of it.

What a pupa has to go through to become a butterfly is, well... Unimaginable. Awkward. Unpleasant.

I wonder if pupae dream about flying in freedom as a butterfly one day, while their entire body structure is bent and broken and grown and put together to perform completely new things.

Because I have "matured" past the stage of believing in talking/thinking animals, I highly doubt this.
It is a nice thought.

But then, pupae don't have to consistently make choices in moving towards butterflydom.
It just happens to them.

For us humans, to make an analogy, our transformation is much more complex.

My current journey is my transformation into a nurse.
And you (on this blog or in real life) are seeing me in my pupa stage. (Talk about humbling.)

Every day there are choices that need to be made to this end. Choosing to study. Choosing to sleep. Choosing to bear another's burden. Choosing to rest in my heart. Choosing to walk into a situation despite fear. Choosing to embrace responsibility.

I couldn't imagine taking each step, making each choice, without a vision for the future.

There is one semester under my belt (well, there will be after this week).
The past three months have been full of experiences, assignments, and considerations of the magnitude of the profession (such a small word to encompass such a profound role) I am training to join.

I think differently. My schedule is more full. My appreciation for being human is greater. My gratitude to Christ and dependency on Him has grown.

These changes may be subtle, but they are real.

I continue to be in the pupa phase of my transformation, but I am much less like a larva.

Only, unlike the insect, God has been good enough to give me a vision for the future. A hope for completion. A goal for the future.

And it is this hope (in knowing Him more and becoming a practicing nurse one day) that sustains me each day that I'm wrestling through the transformation process that is nursing school.