Does the Butterfly Suffer?

 

Last night I couldn’t sleep.  This is kind of a regular thing for me, but lately that time of night has been full of creativity.  I write entire blog posts – brilliant ones, too! – and then can’t remember them in the morning.  Last night I actually got up to write this topic down because I started to think about the changes my life has gone through in the past two years.  I have compared this time of my life to the transformation of a butterfly all along.  But last night I started thinking about all the pain I’ve gone through during this time and it started me thinking…does the butterfly suffer, too? 

As nature makes over the simple caterpillar into a thing of beauty, does it hurt?  Does it feel the growing pains of its metamorphasis?  I wonder what the time in the chrysalis is like for the caterpillar.  Is it a restful time while nature takes care of the changes, or is it an intense time of work and struggle?

Regardless of the process, the butterfly and I will eventually emerge – each as a new creation.  The pain we have gone through will be rewarded by discovering we have wings.

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly…