Metamorphosis

While in Paonia last month, I (Jim) spent a lot of time helping Grandpa on the farm. In the down-times I pulled poison milkweed along the head ditches. In the milkweed I found a Monarch caterpillar for the kids. I brought it home and we checked it daily. Faith dutifully fed it each day until it made its chrysalis. It was a beautiful chrysalis; green with iridescent gold spots in places. For almost two weeks it looked virtually unchanged, but one evening, we noticed the chrysalis beginning to darken, and within could see the faint outline of orange and black wings. The next afternoon it hatched and we let it go in the backyard.

The transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to adult butterfly is incredible to watch... hard to even imagine how it's possible in such a short time. Heather says I could talk about all kinds of cheesy examples of Christian metamorphosis - and it IS a good illustration, but I'm going to leave it at this:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

(Matt. 6:28-29)