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…

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When Your Hut’s On Fire

I got this forward and I really needed it the day it arrived.  My hut was on fire.  Maybe this will be the day it’s happening to your hut.  I thought it was very worth sharing.

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island.  He prayed feverishly for God to rescur him.  Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.  Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.  One day, after scavengine for food, he arrived home to find his lettle hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky.  He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost.  He was stunned with disbelief, grief and anger.  He cried out, “God!  How could you do this to me?”

Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island.  It had come to rescue him!  “How did you know I was here?” asked the wary man of his rescuers.  “We saw the smoke signal,” they replied.

The Moral of the Story:

It’s easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and sufferering.  Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground.  It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.