The Miracle of Becoming a Beautiful New Creature

Late last summer our family room was home to several monarch caterpillars. We watched the eggs hatch and the voracious tiny caterpillars begin their constant eating. For the first part of their life, growth is rapid and very noticeable. Every day they were bigger and ate more.

It was a lot of work to keep up with their needs.

We had lights and cameras set up to capture the different stages in preparation for our next animal education book which is about butterflies.

Those first few weeks were busy as we documented the changes. Then one by one, each found a place on a desirable leaf and hung upside down for a day before transforming itself into a chrysalis.

An opaque green exoskeleton protecting the impending change.

As it hung there, it appeared that nothing was happening. Day after day for over 10 days (which considering a butterfly’s life span is a long time), it seemed stagnant.

One day as I was looking at our little group of chrysalises hanging forlornly on what had now become dead milkweed branches, I wondered if they were still alive.

Nothing we could see on the outside showed any evidence of the changes going on inside.

Then one morning we walked in to find that the opaqueness had turned translucent, and we could see the black and orange of the wings. We watched and waited for this caterpillar-turned-butterfly to emerge as a new creature.

And it was spectacular!!

There are times in our life when we might feel stagnant, when nothing appears to be changing for us no matter how hard we try. We might even feel ‘upside down’ in our goals and feel defeated in repeatedly starting over.

But change is happening with every effort.

Every prayer.

Every desire to do good.

Every single day we get up and try again.

There is One who sees the transparency of our life and He is watching and waiting and noticing all the magnificent changes that we don’t quite realize yet. He sees the end from the beginning and already knows the outcome of our life.

He waits as we are becoming new creatures in Christ. 

And it is Spectacular!