Amy Lynn woke up quadriplegic two years ago and chose gratitude instead of despair. She uses the butterfly metaphor to explain radical change: a butterfly can fly with 70% wing loss, just as humans can transform through what she calls "cocooning"—prayer, meditation, and learning that shift identity from role to divine expression.
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there's a lot of not good stuff out there. So how do we find the good within that? And this is where we bring that practical conversation in. And anybody who knows me knows I'm a huge fan of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Fred Rogers says that his mama, when he was young, would tell him in a moment of challenge, you look for the helper. And so I've kind of transitioned that a little bit to look for the good. Because every circumstance has good in it, because every circumstance is of God and God is good. So if we take a step back and we're looking at a circumstance— for myself, let's just take the physical situation of waking up 2 years ago a quadriplegic. That's a really good opportunity to be angry and bitter about a whole lot of stuff. And don't get me wrong, there are moments of anger and bitterness in my experience.
Yeah.
But we choose how we're going to show up each day. And for me, looking for the helper, looking for the good. How do I look for the good inside being immobile? You know, prior to my health challenges, my identity was so wrapped up in the things I could do, the places I could go, the things I was accomplishing, the do, do, do, do, do. Of life. And so, you know, I, I kind of say this tongue-in-cheek, and I get to because it's my story, is God needed a way to slow Amy Lynn down so that I could become the witness to the good in life that God needed Amy Lynn to be. And that's when BABBS comes out. BABBS is short for badass butterfly. And I don't know if your listeners know this, but a butterfly with 70% of its wing damaged or missing can defy gravity and take flight.
Wow.
70% of its wing damaged or missing can still defy the laws of science and take flight. And I'll take one better example with a butterfly. We start out— butterflies start out as caterpillars. We all know this, right? It's just that we, we do the life sciences thing in grammar school where we talk about the egg and the larva and the chrysalis and then the emergence of the butterfly. A butterfly is the only creature on the face of this planet currently known to science where the DNA is shifted 100% from the caterpillar stage to the butterfly stage. And who creates the caterpillar? Same Creator as you and me.
Yeah, amen.
So, man, when we've made decisions in our life, whether they were— whether they've now created a public record or whether it's a private record that nobody else sees, when we've made those choices, the butterfly is our absolute example that we can change, we can transform. Because the caterpillar was never meant to only be a caterpillar. A caterpillar is birthed to live the experiences that will then catapult it into a place of becoming a butterfly. And it's when that caterpillar goes into the cocoon, it's not sitting on the beach eating bonbons and drinking a Corona inside that cocoon. Yeah, literally transforming every ounce of its being into something brand spanking new.
Wow.
And that is what you and I get to do on a day-to-day basis, regardless of what the people around us are saying about who we are or what we've done or what we've not done that they thought we should.
Mm-hmm.
Man, I'm telling you, take that 10 minutes, take that 15 minutes, take those 2 hours, go into that cocoon, be reminded of who and whose you are and what you are and why you are here. And re-emerge from that cocoon reminiscent of standing solid in and confident in that place of being a witness to the good that you are and the good that God is putting in front of each and every one of us every day.
Wow, that's, that's well put. I, I like the way that you transformed that, you know, and that's like to the human form, like going your cocoon and be reminded that you can blossom to not what you are, to what you were purposed to be, as the caterpillar was always purposed to be a butterfly. And, and I, and I like the fact that I didn't know that either, that a butterfly can lose 70% of their wing or have 70% of it damaged and still be able to defy gravity. I think that's, you know, Science.
Yeah, yeah. You know, so often we're like, well, I can't, or I'm not able, or I wasn't created for that. Are you kidding me? There's not anything we can't do if we put our minds to it.
Yeah.
You know, prior to my stroke, when I became a quadriplegic, I was a paraplegic, and I had lost use of my right arm and hand as well as, as my lower extremities. And so I took the time and I learned, I taught myself how to write with my left hand. And, and it became second nature, just like writing with my right hand had been for 35 years of my life or 40 years of my life or however long it had been. It's, it's the, what is it? What's our impetus? What's our calling card? What's our purpose?
Yeah.
And look, when it becomes less about who I am and more about why I'm here, well, why am I here? Why are you here? Why is your listener here? I mean, we've all asked ourselves these questions, especially in the thick of, of a challenge or a, a a challenging situation. Okay, God, I know you're there, but why have you got me here again?
Yeah.
What's my purpose in all of this? Well, it's remembering that in those off days, it's really important that we do that cocooning work. And that cocooning work is everything from prayer to contemplation to meditation to, to learning and listening and asking questions and shutting up and listening to the answers so that when we are faced in a moment of crisis or challenge, First and foremost, here's the first thing I'm realizing is when we do our work from day to day about our identity and our purpose here, our moments of challenge are fewer and fewer and farther between because there's a confidence with which we show up in our lives on a day-to-day basis. When we recognize that we are not a who, but we are a what— I'm going to repeat that. When we recognize we are not a who, we are a what, our entire perspective in life changes. Because a who has something they're meant to do. A what says that our calling is divinely ordained. So what is that question? What are we? If we're not a who, then what's the what that we are? And we are but the expression of the divine. Without you, without me, without the guy at AT&T who's not dealing very well with my call, or the guy in front of us in the grocery line that's got 30 items in the 5, you know, checkout line, you know, without each of us being a full expression of who we are, the divine doesn't get to be fully expressed. And each of us, if we, if we are doing our work each day, and that work is You know, finding that quiet time to work through a challenging thought, finding the, finding the courage and the strength and the boldness to stand up for ourselves and others in a society where standing up for ourselves or others is seen as arrogant or it's seen as martyrdom. But when we're coming from a place of knowing that we are expressing good, that it's not about Amy Lynn getting credit. For standing up for herself or for another. But that's my calling. God tells me that my job is to be an advocate for my brothers, for my sisters. God doesn't say be your brother's keeper. He says be your brother. Mm-hmm. You are not your sister's keeper. You're your sister because we're one. And so if we're waking up with that mentality, then these labels that everybody else in the world may want to put on us or that in our past we may have put on others.
