Yoder: Drawn Home

By Kathy Yoder

In a time not long ago, in a place not far away, there lived a man who loved to draw. He could take an ordinary pencil and a common, work-horse piece of paper and make something come alive. It was his joy. His passion. His life. Time stood still when he drew. Everything around him ceased to exist. The only thing that was real was what was at the end of his number two pencil. He got lost in his drawing, and his drawing got lost in him.

One day he sat down at the kitchen table, took his pencil and paper and began drawing butterflies simply because they called to him at that moment. It was a lonely call and a hopeful one, too. They wanted to be created in the worst and the best way. For him to not draw those particular butterflies at that particular minute would be the equivalent of him not breathing. He had no choice. So he drew butterflies—beautiful, unique, unusual, breathtaking butterflies.

From the beginning, he knew something was different about these butterflies. He not so much drew them as allowed them to come to life under his pencil. Several times as he was drawing he thought he could see them stretching their wings, attempting to lift off the very paper that was their home.

He thought, for just a moment, that he saw a wing actually flutter.

He rubbed his eyes. He shook his head. He stood up and walked away for a few minutes. It was too much to comprehend. Too strange to be real. After a while he calmed himself and decided this had gone far enough. The experience unsettled him deeply. Perhaps it was time to set the pencil aside for a season and seek out simpler, more ordinary pursuits—something that would bring him into the company of others and quiet the intensity of creation. It sounded safer. More manageable. Less consuming.

When the man walked back to the kitchen, determined to put the paper away, he was shocked to discover a blankness looking back at him. The butterflies were gone. It was as if they’d never been drawn in the first place.

Until he heard the sound of wings flapping. The very air around him changed and he struggled to breathe any of it in.

Taking one deep breath, he slowly turned around and saw every butterfly he had drawn flying around his blue and orange kitchen—joyful loop-to-loops in the air, lighting atop the refrigerator, pausing on the counters. They seemed to know the man. To recognize him as their creator. They followed him everywhere. For a while.

But then the larger world called to them and they left. Just a few at first, but soon others followed. They flew out the doors and the windows in search of life outside their creator’s reach. The man left the doors and windows open, just in case they wanted to come back home.

He never took up knitting or joined a card club. He did read a book from time to time. But mostly he drew and lived in hope that the butterflies—his butterflies—would come back.

And they did. Toward the end of his life. The man was in bed drawing what would become his last drawing here on earth when he heard it again. That sound from so long ago. Hundreds of exquisite butterflies filled his room. They seemed to call to him. To say, “Follow us.”

So he did. He followed them. And the man who loved to draw was drawn home.

Later, others found his drawings. They marveled at how real they looked. As if whatever the man drew wanted to leave the very page it was drawn on and come to life.

But the last drawing is the best. It’s a picture of Jesus sitting at the man’s kitchen table surrounded by hundreds of breathtaking butterflies. In His hand, Jesus is holding an ordinary, yellow, number two pencil. In front of Him is a common, work-horse piece of paper. On the paper is drawn a picture of the man who loved to draw. He’s smiling. He’s home.

One interesting side note: Whoever looks at this drawing thinks they can hear the sound of wings flapping.

Kathy Yoder is a devotional writer and Christian author who has a special love for butterflies. She may be reached at kathyyoder4@gmail.com and Kathyyoder.com.