Transformations

Some worms spend their whole life in the dirt.  

They provide a wonderful service to the plants and the flowers. 

Their beauty is in their work. 

Then there is the Caterpillar;

 Fuzzy, and funny looking. 

Children notice him, he is delightful to them.

All of God's creation has value.  

 Remember the old saying "don't judge a book by its cover"?

It works for worms too.

 Some of them become Butterflies.

I found  a Butterfly fluttering in the dirt one morning last week. I wasn't sure what it was at first. I came closer and saw it was a butterfly coming out of a Chrysalis. Its wings were still crumpled and bent, its abdomen still had a shell attached (perhaps a part of the Chrysalis). I gently reached down and allowed it to crawl up on my hand, then set it my garden bed with the flowers where there was a little shelter from the hot morning. I watched throughout the day.  It fluttered and jumped and struggled to come into its fullness. It was there into the second day. Later when we looked at the garden bed, it was gone. I felt sad. I had become attached to it already. Isn't that funny… its just an insect, but I felt a connection to it. I suppose because I felt compassion for its struggle and was allowed to see it as it was transforming. That was a miracle to me. One that I had not seen before. 

Steve and I were sitting on our front patio a little later in the evening, when we looked up, there was Miss Butterfly flying in under the covered patio. I am sure it must have been the same one. It had the same markings, it looked like the same one. It was really almost as if that butterfly had come to find us and say. "Look here, I am flying.  Thanks for the shelter and the kind words". Then it flew away. It seemed as if the Lord had shown us something beautiful. A reminder, a thought, a word of encouragement.

Sometimes we, like the Butterfly, look crumpled and bent and funny as we are being transformed into what He is calling us to be. Evidences of what we are and who we are stand out; but our wings are bent, we look a little rumpled, we hop around and try to fly, we're almost there… but not quite.  We were worms, and now look what we've become… but not completely, not yet, we can't fly quite yet.  Oh if someone is patient and kind with us as we are being transformed; if someone has a sweet word of encouragement and appreciation for who we are, it would be like a soft wind that lifts us up.

Have a wonderful week.  May the Spirit of the Lord bless you with encouragement and joy this week

as your are being transformed into His image.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18