Sunday Meditation - The Caterpillar and the Butterfly

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly. -Richard Back

The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly has long been a favorite subject of poets as well as other writers. There is such a vast difference between the lowly caterpillar with it's often drab colors, crawling through the dirt and the soaring colorful beauty of the butterfly. There is the mystery of what happens during that dark and quiet time when the caterpillar is hidden away in the coccoon, then bursting forth in color and flying away to flit from flower to flower.

As much as I would like to know what is happening in that dark and still place where the miracle happens, I know that to open the coccoon before the change is complete is to disrupt the process and destroy the delicate life in the midst of transformation.

It's easy when I am going times when things seem dark and still, life seems to have come to a halt, to feel like it's never going to get better, and nothing is ever going to change. It sometimes feels as if my very spirit is dying. There have been times that I thought I was going to be stuck in this dark and silent place forever. And then comes the faintest stirring of hope, the smallest increase in strength and the urge to break free begins to build. I struggle against the restraints surrounding me, gaining strength as I put forth effort. The struggle is necessary for the development and strength of my wings, as I soon discover. And suddenly, I find myself free, resting for a moment as I survey where I have been and the wonder of the new vistas now available to me. And then I find myself soaring into the air, ready for the new life miraculously granted to me.

An interesting difference between the human experience and the butterfly's is that we get to have this transformation repeatedly. The Master who made me continually helps me to become more and more the person He ultimately created me to be. Each metamorphosis is simply a another step closer to that goal.