Porcupine Love

I turned 40 this past summer. My daughter has so kindly reminded me, “but you’re NOT old Mom!” She’s right, but as I’ve taken the time to reflect and look back, I’ve realized I spent my 20s, and most of my 30s, wandering. I wasn’t very happy. I may have put on the facade, but there was always a missing link that I couldn’t quite connect.

As I’ve been teaching my Sunday School littles about Moses, I’ve come to realize I looked a lot like the Israelites, grumbling and complaining. At one point, they even told Moses to take them back! Back to Egypt, the place of their bondage and slavery. The part that I can’t escape is the journey to the Promised Land should have only taken 11 days. 11 days! But it took them 40 years.

During these years it was so evident God was with them. He parted the Red Sea, paved the way with a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day, Manna and Quail from Heaven to sustain them. His voice was even audible, yet they couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.

I wonder how many of us have found ourselves in the same situation, wandering, stuck. I’ve often found, for something new to take place, a rebirth, it usually takes a breaking. A coming to our bottom. Because it’s in our darkest places where we can finally see the light. When we’re at the bottom. There’s no place to look, but up.

During the COVID years, I experienced some of my darkest days. But then something happened. On one of those days, I found myself in a puddle of tears behind my desk on the floor. I was overwhelmed, and at my end. After I had exhausted all my tears, I stood up and looked out the window, and as I did, I saw our neighbor.

You see, she had been struggling too. Her partner had Alzheimer’s, and with the lockdowns she’d lost a lot of her support. And as I watched her, I started thinking about our other neighbors. The elderly gentleman across the street who had recently lost his partner of over 60 years, and the mama down the road who was struggling just as much as I was, if not more.

And so clearly it came to me, “It’s not all about you Heather!” Sometimes I think we get so self-absorbed we can’t see past ourselves. We can’t get out of our own way. It’s like looking in a mirror. All we can see is ourselves and what’s behind us. But in that moment, it was this visual, to put down the mirror and pick up my binoculars.

And in that process, something shifted. You see, it wasn’t about me anymore. It was, “What am I going to do for them?” I’ve learned that sometimes all we need is a perspective change. My life has become less about me, my needs, wants, and achievements, and more about how I can push others forward in theirs.

I listened to this powerful talk between Jack Hibbs and Barry Meguiar last year Happening Now with Pastor Jack and Barry Meguiar, several times to be honest. It was so impactful. Barry said, we should constantly be looking for opportunities to push others towards Jesus.

The crazy thing that’s happened, is as I’ve put this into practice it’s finally allowed me to soar, to flourish where I’ve been planted!

In Lisa Bevere’s 7 Ways to Become a Woman of Influence she says,

“We need godmothers to help the sons and daughters learn how to work together rather than compete and fight. We live in a day when many are looking for gaps rather than for ways to close them.

And yet the words of Jesus speak of better things. He tells us that amid all the strife, there will be those who make peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 4:9 KJV).

It is time for us to live in such a way that this could be said of us. What if people began to look at you and me and whisper, “Did you see that? Did you hear her? Did you feel that? There goes a child of God”

The message translation says it this way: “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family” (Matthew 5:9 MSG).

Do you hear this? We discover who we really are by helping others. We discover our place in God’s family by making peace. As we do this, we discover our purpose and our place.

As we begin to fill the gaps, making peace and restoring what has been broken, we’ll not only increase our influence; we’ll also leave a legacy that endures. One that will replenish life to our communities, and position the generations that follow, to go farther than we’ve gone ourselves.”

As I’ve been processing through all of this, one of the books I’m reading came to me. It’s titled, How to Hug a Porcupine. And don’t we all have porcupines in our lives? Those difficult, glass half empty, always has a negative comment, difficult to like, and some days feels impossible to love kind of people. Your eye is twitching just thinking about them.

But here’s the thing! As I started reading through some of the lists, I thought, “Ohhhh… MYLANTA! I think I might be a porcupine!!! And let’s be honest with ourselves, even if we’re not full-blown porcupines, we all have porcupine moments from time to time, and there are definitely specific people in our lives who bring out the porcupine tendencies in us.

I think it’s so important for us to stand back and extend a little extra grace, couldn’t we all use it? That undeserved favor that Jesus died on the cross and so freely gave us! We never know what someone’s been through. What they may be carrying.

As I’ve read, I’ve thought about my porcupines, and you know, these people weren’t born “porcupines”!  But through life’s circumstances and trials they’ve been hit by some metaphoric quills. And instead of pulling them out and letting their wounds heal, they left them in, to fester, and eventually take root, and before they knew it negativity, bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness took over their life.

And because he’s so good to me! He brought me back to something. Several years ago, I gave my husband a Valentine’s card with two porcupines nose to nose with a heart coming from their meeting point.

And in that moment, he tied it all together for me. My husband and I have been meeting with this wonderful woman for counseling.  She recently shared a card with a profound nugget of wisdom by Emmet Fox.

After we read it, she pulled out 1 Corinthians 13, the LOVE Chapter. But here’s the thing, she told us as we read it to replace the word love with our names.

So here it is with my name, but as you read replace it with yours.

“Heather is patient, Heather is kind. She does not envy, she does not boast, she is not proud. She is not rude, she is not self-seeking, she is not easily angered, she keeps no record of wrongs. Heather does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. She always protects, always trusts, always, hopes, always perseveres. Heather never fails.” 

I’m going to be honest; this doesn’t reflect me most days. I fall short more often than I’d like to admit, but it’s who I aspire to be.

What if it really does conquer all, never fails! What if putting it into action changes not only our life, but the lives of those around us, our families, our workplaces, our communities, our world! You see, I know it’s the answer, because he told us that God is LOVE (John 4:8).

And maybe this is the key to not only hugging a porcupine, but loving them, and who knows what we may discover under those quills!

We each have a choice of what kind of legacy we’ll leave, the mantle we’ll place on those behind us. Will it be a legacy of love?

1 John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 John 4:16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”