I got an email a few days ago with this picture in it and this comment: “It is difficult to understand how anyone would consider its life as less than a butterfly.”
I smiled when I read that. Several years ago, I would have seen this as less than a butterfly, especially if it were eating the plants in our backyard. I would have regarded it as a pest, having no idea it was a Monarch butterfly in the making. I probably would have killed it so it wouldn’t destroy Sara’s plants. I know better now because of this woman. I met her many years ago in upstate Wisconsin on a trip there. She raised butterflies and brought some over so we could watch them crawl out of their chrysalis. I had never seen that before, and it was wondrous.
Since then, Sara and I have had a butterfly garden of our own where we’ve watched many caterpillars like this one feed off our plants until they crawl off to form a chrysalis and, after a few days, emerge as the butterfly you see below. When I see one of these devouring our milkweed plants, I see a butterfly in process. It makes my heart as happy to see one of these yellow, black, and white striped caterpillars knowing that a new butterfly is in the world.
I love what she said about seeing the butterfly in the caterpillar. What if we did that for ourselves? What if we saw the incorruptible and immortal being that God is bringing into existence? We can look beyond the limitations and foibles of the day to realize what we already are in him. His transformation may not yet be evident on the outside, but the DNA is already there. A caterpillar is a butterfly in process. The people I know who live with the most contentment on this journey have grown comfortable with the process of Jesus’ transformation. He continually takes people who are twisted up in the appetites of this world and the lies of religious performance and untangles them so that they can become all that he created them to be. We yearn to emerge in all the beauty God has put in us, and when we see ourselves fall short of that glory, we can grow easily frustrated with ourselves or God. What if we already saw the butterfly in the caterpillar?
Instead of wishing to be a butterfly, we might enjoy being a caterpillar and doing what caterpillars do as his process of growing us and shaping us. That’s fun for him too. He doesn’t just enjoy you when you’re a full-fledged butterfly but delights in the butterfly already inside you. We are not going to be sons and daughters of God someday; we already are! That would help us with others, too. How much more carefully would we treat others around us if we didn’t see how far short they fell of butterfly beauty today and embraced with them the process they are in of being transformed into his glory?
My friend concluded a subsequent email this way: “It is a lovely process, isn’t it? I grin from ear to ear as I grow in recognition of how I get to participate in the unfolding. He is so awesome despite very challenging times when I am being stretched to the limit emotionally.”
Selah!
Trust him to see you through the process. Learn to enjoy every bit of it because I suspect he does. And maybe in some sense, all of our life here is caterpillar time and only at the Resurrection of all things will we become in form what we’ve always been in his heart.
How wonderfully beautiful this is. God, I am happy to be your catipillar, knowing I am your wonderment the apple of your eye. Thank you, Papa.
I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce. He suggests that our earthly handicaps and failings will be transformed into magnificent flying horses or menacing monsters beyond the grave.
Hi Wayne,
This post came right on time. Thank you.
Marcia
So well said, Wayne.
Isn’t it just like him. You think you are raising butterflies only to discover he was raising you all the time. What a father! Incredible life lessons wrapped in beautiful experiences. All gift.
Fromm caterpillar to a butterfly. What a sea change!!! Glory to God!!
Wayne, this is so good! I was meeting with a directee today (I’m a spiritual director), and she talked about all the monarch butterflies that just keep appearing in front of her, day after day, and how she got to see one come out of its cocoon last year. Your writing really was helpful in bringing some of the value of “process” into our conversation. Surely our process, even when we’re in the “gooey mess” (as she put it) of the cocoon is very holy.