The Butterfly Effect

Recently, Sarah had some lessons in science on metamorphosis and we decided to order some larvae and watch the butterflies develop. When the box came we were very excited and surprised to open the box to find a small plastic container with what looked like icky sticky stuff covered on the bottom and some worms crawling around! The instructions said to leave them in a quiet area and they would eat, grow, and become butterflies. So we did. Everyday, the larvae doubled in size and just trudged through this icky brown stuff in the bottom of the cup. By the end of the week, there were five huge caterpillars and a big mess. In the process of eating and growing, they shed their skin up to five times leaving a web-like mess throughout the entire cup. Eventually they just attach to the top of the cup and go into their cocoon. It is interesting that for a week, the cocoons looked as if nothing was happening. In fact they appear to be doing nothing but dying. The part you can’t see is that inside the caterpillar is completely changing, actually completely breaking down, liquefying before it starts to form into the creature it is meant to be. Toward the end of the process, there is an actual struggle within the cocoon taking place. You can’t see it from the outside, but if you help in opening the cocoon in any way, the butterfly will die as it will not be strong enough to fly. Wow…what an incredible picture. When the butterflies finally start to appear, you see this creature stretching its legs and wiggling its ways out. At first it is not very pretty…it actually looks kind of like a little alien, but then in the blink of an eye its wings unfold and they are so beautiful, and they literally drip with the paint from their wings! It truly was an amazing site to see. One only God could have planned out.

The experience reminded me of a very special verse to me, Revelation 21:5. “Behold, I make all things new”. After the people or worm caterpillars had made a complete mess of everything, after everything had been destroyed, God promised to make everything new again! He works things, sometimes in very weird ways to take us through the process of becoming what He wants us to be….a beautiful butterfly. That process can take us through what appears to be death or what seems like a cocoon that shows no signs of life or a way out. The kids and I really had no guarantee that the ugly cocoons were actually going to produce butterflies. In fact, one of the cocoons was unusually small and fell to the bottom of the cup. We really thought that one was not going to make it, but every day we watched, because the instructions said it would happen with time.

The same is true with God’s Word. He says He will make things new and He does. We just have to watch and wait, persevere and hang on to the truth knowing He makes all things new, in His time.