I read this quote, scrawled on a whiteboard, the first time I walked into a weight watchers meeting, in October of 2007. I was full of doubts. “This will never work. Why am I here?”

I was there because after watching my mother-in-law die from complications related to her type II diabetes, I was ready to change the way I was living.

This quote made me think. What was keeping me from losing weight? Was it that I didn’t want it badly enough? No. It was that I didn’t want to give up my “caterpillar” ways. I liked eating whatever I wanted. I liked not exercising. It worked for me. But, I wanted to fly, too. I decided that, yes, I wanted it so much that I was willing to make sacrifices.

The program worked well for me. I lost 55 pounds in about a year. So far, I have kept it off. I still think about that quote frequently.

Today, out of curiousity, I went looking for the source of the quote. I was surprised to learn that it actually comes from a favorite book of mine, Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus. In the story, two caterpillars try to reach the top of a pillar of caterpillars by using any means necessary. As caterpillars, they are drawn to the sky, but don’t know another way to reach it. They eventually discover that reaching the top doesn’t actually get them anywhere. One of the caterpillars forms a cocoon and becomes a butterfly. She finds the other and tries to explain to him what he needs to do to reach the sky.

One day, while Stripe was almost at the top of the caterpillar pilar, he saw a beautiful yellow butterfly. Stripe admired the yellow butterfly who flew with beautiful wings and joined the earth to the heavens. The butterfly flew towards Stripe and told him “Stripe, I am your friend Yellow and like me, you are meant to become a butterfly. Butterflies drink only nectars from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another. Without butterflies the world would soon have few flowers.”

Stripe gasped, “It can’t be true! How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside me when all I see is a fuzzy worm?”

“Tell me how can I become a butterfly ?” Stripe asked pensively.

“YOU MUST WANT TO FLY SO MUCH THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO GIVE UP BEING A CATERPILLAR.”

It’s a beautiful book and has such a great Christian message: We have to be willing to give up our “selves” in order to put on Christ. When we pass into the next life, we think of it as death, but it’s more like the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly. It’s becoming what we were meant to be. But when we look at ourselves now, it’s hard to imagine giving up being the caterpillar.

Two years ago, I went to a women’s retreat where Christian author Robin Jones Gunn spoke. Our theme was “Taking Flight.” Robin taught us that God sometimes gives us a “calling” that seems beyond us, too difficult to imagine. But that He can give us the strength to accomplish it. But we must be willing to spread our wings and reach for the sky. Just like the story, Hope for the Flowers, we have to want to fly so much that we are willing to give up the safe road.

My quest to get Shaken published is my newest attempt to spread my wings. It’s taking me far from my comfort zone and stretching me beyond what I thought I could do. But it’s worth it. I’m willing to give up being a secure caterpillar, if it means I can fly with the butterflies.