"It blessed my socks!"

I remember a time in high school when Pastor Terry Carlson was our speaker for chapel. He was talking about the goodness of God and said, in his amazed kind of way, "It blessed my socks!" My friend Heather and I started laughing and tried to stay quiet. To this day, that memory makes me laugh.
What's even more funny is that his statement could have been 100% true. Maybe God did bless his socks. Who am I to say it couldn't be?
Well, this past weekend, Mike took me to the Butterfly Gardens in Grand Rapids. The moment I stepped foot into the garden, I was amazed. There were literally butterflies EVERYWHERE. They flew around and chased each other. All I could say was "WOW!". This was my moment in life when God "blessed my socks". :)
As I said in a previous posting, I relate a lot of my life to a butterfly. I could say that right now, I'm one of the fluttering butterflies in the garden.
While we were in the garden, I took about 100 pictures. Of course, I went through them on my computer as soon as I got home. What I noticed over and over again was that while I may have captured an amazing shot of a butterfly, almost all of them had little cuts in their wings or even parts that had been torn off. This moved me to tears as God ministered to my heart.
In the Bible, Jacob wrestled an angel, received a blessing, and walked with a limp for the rest of his life from the marking of that moment. He could be reminded constantly, not of the struggle, but of the moment he received his blessing. Likewise, I feel as though I've been "wrestling angels" trying to get to the other side of this barrier in my walk with God. I'm not suggesting that I've put a wall up, but sometimes we get to points where we need a breakthrough to get to a new level in our spiritual walk. (That's a whole bunch of Christianese. Sorry.)
Anyway, even the beautiful butterfly has marking moments; things that leave their mark on its wings but don't steal its ability to fly.
My physical marking moment is fast approaching as I get closer to surgery to remove my tumor. This surgery will not take away my ability to do anything, though it may leave a scar. I pray that every time I view that scar, I'm reminded of my moment of struggle and blessing.