When I first finished this collage, no metaphorical meaning came into my mind.

But this morning, as I sat down at my writing desk and saw it waiting for me, a strong sense of symbolism rushed right in!

I’m sure this is because of the blog post I’d just read (Hope after #metoo) before I came here.

Broken hearts—and lives—abound in our world. Abuse that breaks them runs rampant. But things made to fly still can, once they regain their strength, once their lives revive. A butterfly just emerged from cocoon is exhausted and weak. It takes time for it to gather its inner resources and venture, little by little, to the end of a branch, and eventually into the air.

These decorative winged creatures now look, to me, like they’re gaining joy from one another’s presence. No longer smushed down into sodden lumps of near-death, struggling just to lift a wing from their bodies, they all hold wings wide, in full flight.

Yet together.

We whose hearts, even lives, have been broken by abuse can gain strength and life from the same kind of resource–and from another even greater source. (Read linked post.) I can personally testify that this source can enable us to rise and act far above our own capabilities. I could tell so many stories…

But today instead of reading more from me, please click and visit this page on Denise Hughes’s website, and find out one thing that’s uniting and strengthening hearts wounded by abuse, one more way of raising awareness of a problem we’ve been touching on here this week.

And rejoice.

[You may want to send a friend or two there afterward, too!]

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Other posts in this “collage” series that touch on the subject of domestic violence and abuse:

Lovelights and Blues (Day 13 Collage)

Day 17 Collage Talk: “Only Words”

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