Ladybugs
I see the first one in the kitchen. How did you get in here? I stand there for a minute, mesmerized, as if I’ve never seen one before. She creeps along the counter, minding her own business, weaving in and out of leftover breakfast crumbs.
Eventually, I snap out of my trance and carry her to the camellia tree outside our front door. I place her on a leaf, noting to myself: that was weird.
Before I go on, I should provide some context for this story. Have you ever felt both overwhelmed and bored at the same time? This is where I found myself in the second half of 2019. Toward the end of last year, I became unexpectedly restless—mostly in my creative work. I felt this weird combination of stress and disinterest, anxiety and apathy. Everything was both too much and not enough, and I started asking myself some big, internal questions, like, how much longer can I do this? For the most part, I kept my 3am worries to myself, not wanting to alarm anyone. On good days, I trudged along, checking items off my to-do list with a grateful but tired heart. On bad days, I wondered if the well had run dry; if everything I’d done over the past five years was coming to an end.
And then I started seeing ladybugs everywhere.
I know, it sounds crazy. This might sound even crazier, but I sensed God telling me two things:
Be still.
Pay attention.
I see the second one in my bathroom, through the reflection in the mirror. I am applying mascara to my lashes when something flutters behind me, catching my eye. It’s another ladybug, crawling up the bathroom window. I watch it for several minutes.
Before you start wondering if my house is infested with ladybugs, let me tell you about the third one—I am sitting at a red light when a ladybug lands on my windshield. Literally, right in my line of sight, waiting at an intersection, on an ordinary Tuesday.
That night, I tell Brett.
“I know this sounds crazy,” I say slowly, “but all of a sudden I’m seeing ladybugs everywhere and I feel like God is doing something, or trying to tell me something.”
(As I say it out loud, it does sound a little crazy, but then I think of Moses and if God can talk through a burning bush, surely He can use ladybugs, too? It’s not as impressive, but less of a fire hazard.)
A few weeks later, a friend and I are talking about writing, and faith, and doubt, and I think tattoos? I can’t remember where the conversation begins, but at some point, it turns to feathers. She tells me about how, along her creative journey, God has used feathers to nudge her to keep going, and that whenever she starts to question or doubt whether writing is something she should pursue, a feather appears. Real feathers, artwork on a book cover, a logo on a shoebox—she’s seen it all.
This quickly becomes a thing between us: I start texting her pictures of all the ladybugs I see, and she texts me back pictures of feathers. Like two scraps of fleece, there they are—a sign for her, a sign for me. Ladybug on a windowsill. Feather on a sidewalk. Let’s keep going. Don’t give up. I won’t if you won’t.
Meanwhile, I start standing still, listening, paying attention. Not just to the ladybugs, but to everything around me: my surroundings, my heart, anything and everything God could possibly be leading me toward. Slowly, gradually, something starts to shift. Weeks turn into months and I start to feel a spark of energy. That feeling grows, and grows, until I start to feel reawakened. Alive. One day I actually feel ready to create again, to follow a few breadcrumbs, to experiment, to fall down and get back up. Around this time, a ladybug appears on the living room curtain. I begin dreaming … of a new podcast series, a website makeover, an online writing workshop for postpartum moms. My head starts filling with ideas and possibilities and dare I say a glimmer of confidence.
For the first time in months, I do not feel paralyzed. The fifth ladybug shows up in my kitchen sink; another on the bathroom counter. I am always alone when I find them.
Be still.
Pay attention.
Let me tell you about the seventh.
Earlier this week I am standing in the shower washing my hair when a tiny idea—a spark that’s been sitting in my heart for over three years—suddenly catches fire. I do not know how to accurately describe this experience, other than to say it feels like a mental lightning bolt. A flurry of ideas appear, one after the other, like a machine pitching balls at my head. I feel dizzy, disoriented, thrilled, confused. But mostly: terrified of losing it.
I hop out of the shower, throw on a bathrobe, twist my hair up in a towel, and grab a notebook. Scribbling, furiously, I fill up four pages over the next thirty minutes. On top of the frenzy and elation, I also experience a weird sense of déjà vu—me, six years ago, standing in the shower, being hit with an idea so fully formed, there was no way it could have come from me.
When I confide in a friend about it later, she responds, “Isn’t it incredible when we get to co-create with God like that?”
Be still.
Pay attention.
And wouldn’t you know it? Two nights later, on my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water, I notice a speck on my bedspread out of the corner of my eye.
It is, of course, a ladybug.
