Friday, May 3, 2013

The Butterfly Effect

All of my life I've been fascinated with butterflies. The elementary school I went to had a huge open area of just green grass and wild flowers. My friends and I would go out there and try and catch the Monarchs that would fly around during springtime and try to find caterpillars so we could watch the transformation. Most of the them didn't survive in the classroom. Our teacher would always keep butterfly nets and little "bug boxes" for us so we could go on our little adventure everyday at recess. It wasn't till later in life, I learned why I was so fascinated by butterflies. I related to them. I know that sounds weird, relating to a bug.

I'm sure you've all been read the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" Well, this is my interpretation of that book, except with a little twist.

When we're young children we love to play outside and get dirty. We eat almost all the time and want juice every thirty minutes. Or at least that's how I was. We are limited on what can see and what we can do. There's a huge world out there that we don't even know about. The farthest we've explored on our own is to the fence in the backyard or to the stop sign at the end of the street. We are limited, just like the caterpillar who spends most of his life next to the same tree he was hatched in.

Now there comes a time in our lives where we want to eat every ten minutes. We're growing, getting bigger and the world doesn't look so big anymore. We may have wondered a little further than that stop sign down the street. We get braver and kind of start rebelling. I like to compare this to the fat caterpillar. Eating all the time and getting cranky from carrying all this food around. He gets tired and starts to make a cocoon.

We get into high school and kind of feel trapped by our parents but at the same time, discovering who we are as a person. We start to express our true colors to the world. We're changing, slowly but surely we're growing and changing. Some for the better and some for the worse. None the less we are still in our cocoon.

This is my favorite part. Being set free. I like to think of this in two ways. We're set free to explore this whole new world that we did not know existed when we were little kids playing in the backyard. Our colors are finally more vibrant than before and we can spread our wings and fly to wherever we want to go! The coolest thing is, every butterfly in the world, no two are exactly the same in wing pattern. Same with us, we are all different. The butterfly also symbolizes a new creation. New creation in Christ to be exact.

I don't know if you completely followed me through this whole explaining of why the butterfly is so important to me and why I connect with it so much. I don't blame you if don't get it, or think it's "stupid". These words do not do justice to what I feel inside about the butterfly and how it connects with me. At least you know a little bit about how I see life now. But just remember, you are beautiful no matter what your colors are. So spread those wings you've been waiting so long to show off!



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