Last night I sat alone in my backyard doing what I do best: thinking. Actually, that's not true. I was overthinking. There's a difference. Thinking helps you solve problems. Overthinking convinces you that a typo in an email from 2018 is somehow responsible for every bad thing that's ever happened.
I started where I usually try to start...gratitude. A new job helping people find recovery. My family. My faith. The simple miracle that somehow God hasn't blocked my number yet.
But then, like they always seem to do, the worries showed up. They never knock. They just sneak in. Kind of like my dog, Benji. If it's ten degrees outside and he's been out for exactly forty-three seconds, suddenly he's reenacting a prison escape, clawing at the back door like his life depends on getting inside. Apparently, sniffing one leaf is exhausting work.
That's what worry feels like. You close the door on it. It scratches. You ignore it. It scratches louder. Eventually, you open the door just to make it stop.
That's exactly where I was...when something started blinking out of the corner of my eye.
Fireflies.
Not one.
Not two.
Dozens.
They were everywhere. Floating around the trees. Blinking over the flowers. Dancing along the fence. Lighting up the grass around the chicken coop. One landed on my leg like we'd scheduled a meeting. Another hovered in front of my face like the world's tiniest UFO trying to decide whether I'd be worth abducting. After taking one look inside my head, it wisely flew away.
I forgot every single thing I had been worrying about.
Just like that.
There's something about fireflies. They have the same effect as rainbows. A rainbow makes complete strangers stop whatever they're doing, pull out their phones, and try to capture something that can't really be captured.
Fireflies don't ask to be photographed.
Nobody rushes.
Nobody says, "Quick! Take a picture!"
You just sit there and watch.
Blink.
Dark.
Blink.
Dark.
It's like the backyard is breathing.
I remembered when my kids were little. Every summer they'd stay up until it was finally dark enough. Nine o'clock wasn't bedtime. It was opening night.
Then the annual hunt began. Hands flying everywhere. Jars with holes punched in the lids.
At one point, I'm pretty sure someone built an elaborate firefly-catching machine out of duct tape, a paper towel roll, and the unwavering confidence that only a child possesses.
It didn't work. Of course it didn't work. But that was never really the point. The catching wasn't the memory. The wonder was.
Then I learned something I had never known before. Fireflies spend almost ninety percent of their lives underground.
Years. Hidden. Growing. Changing. Nobody notices them. Nobody applauds them. Then, for just two to four weeks, they emerge.
They glow. They find each other. They bring new life into the world. And then they're gone.
I had to sit with that for a while.
Because maybe we're all a little like fireflies. Every one of us has seasons when it feels like we're living underground.
The diagnosis we never expected. The job we didn't get.
The marriage that's struggling. The child we're worried about.
The grief that refuses to leave. The dream that seems to have slipped away.
The questions that keep us awake at two in the morning.
Life has a way of taking us underground sometimes. Quiet places. Dark places. Hidden places. The kind of seasons where it feels like everyone else is moving forward while we're simply trying to make it through another day.
Maybe you've been there or you're there right now.
Then God did what God often does. He didn't answer my worries. He simply changed what I was looking at.
Each tiny light blinked the same message.
"Not yet."
Maybe the underground wasn't punishment... it was preparation. Maybe all that time beneath the surface wasn't wasted... the darkness wasn't keeping them from becoming light. Maybe it was teaching them how.
I'm fifty-five now. I don't need to be the brightest light anymore. I've spent enough years chasing titles. Awards. Recognition.
Those things are nice.
They just don't love you back.
People do.
I don't know how many summers I have left. Hopefully a lot. But probably fewer than I've already lived. Oddly enough, I don't find that depressing anymore. I find it clarifying.
If a firefly can spend almost its entire life preparing for just a few weeks of light, maybe that's the invitation for the rest of us.
Spend less time worrying about how long we've been underground...and more time asking who needs our light today.
Tonight, if you happen to see a firefly blinking in the darkness, let it interrupt you. Put your phone away. Watch it.
Smile. And remember... the miracle isn't that it shines.
The miracle is that after spending most of its life hidden beneath the ground, it still chooses to become light.
Maybe that's why God made fireflies.
Not just to brighten our backyards.
But to remind us... that it's never too late to become the light someone else has been praying for.
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