There's a photo at the booth where I'm eating my breakfast this morning. It's a close-up of a flower that is starting to bloom -- its deep-purple and yellow-striped petals stretch out like someone who just woke up and is stretching her arms. The rest of the flower is still wrapped in its green shell, waiting to appear.
It reminds me of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, and I think about the pain of life, the trials and all the other experiences, which God can use to make us more beautiful, to be more like Jesus.
As I was grieving a loss recently, someone sent me a card with a big butterfly on it. I wrote some words on the card that came to me and put it on my desk: "A butterfly emerges only after a painful transformation."
To make a butterfly, a caterpillar forms into a chrysalis and gets reworked into a butterfly (a process that sounds pretty rough). Also, the butterfly's struggle of leaving the shell helps prepare its wings for flight (if I remember correctly from my visit to a butterfly enclosure)
So when we struggle, when we feel like we're being broken down while we are following Jesus, we can remember that He's doing His work in us, and we can look forward to emerging more and more as the beautiful creations He has designed.
... that's what I'm telling myself today as I sip my coffee.
May God bless your weekend!
---
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
**II Corinthians *5:17 *NKJV
“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.”
**Philippians *1:3-8 *NKJV
It reminds me of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, and I think about the pain of life, the trials and all the other experiences, which God can use to make us more beautiful, to be more like Jesus.
As I was grieving a loss recently, someone sent me a card with a big butterfly on it. I wrote some words on the card that came to me and put it on my desk: "A butterfly emerges only after a painful transformation."
To make a butterfly, a caterpillar forms into a chrysalis and gets reworked into a butterfly (a process that sounds pretty rough). Also, the butterfly's struggle of leaving the shell helps prepare its wings for flight (if I remember correctly from my visit to a butterfly enclosure)
So when we struggle, when we feel like we're being broken down while we are following Jesus, we can remember that He's doing His work in us, and we can look forward to emerging more and more as the beautiful creations He has designed.
... that's what I'm telling myself today as I sip my coffee.
May God bless your weekend! ---
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
**II Corinthians *5:17 *NKJV
“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.”
**Philippians *1:3-8 *NKJV
