The Butterfly Metamorphosis

One of my favorite fall activities as a child was discovering that certain caterpillars transformed into butterflies. The one favorite was the Monarch Butterfly with its brillant reddish-orange, black, and white coloring. Most butterfly caterpillars are not the most attractive things in the world. The Monarch caterpillar is a black, yellow, and white striped little crawler. Once a caterpillar was found, my siblings and I would carefully break the part of the Milkweed plant that had the caterpillar on it, and place into a glass canning jar. There we would wait for the whole process to occur. Finally, the caterpillar would find a safe spot on the plant and form the chrysalis or cocoon to protect the caterpillar during it's process of metamorphosis. During this process, this chrysalis turns different colors and then finally clear, so that we could see the dazzling colors of the butterfly.


Before the New Year begins, there is talk of organizing and dejunking, setting goals, making deadlines, and essentially, creating a "brand new you." Looking back on the year's successes, triumphs, joys, disappointments, and such, we have been given the beautiful blessing of rediscovering ourselves not only on a yearly basis, but on a day-by-day basis as well. It's a way of receiving that "second chance," "extreme makeover," or "clean slate" that is desparately needed. This is when the Butterfly Metamorphosis takes place. It is our opportunity to be that caterpillar and take a journey to becoming that beautiful, dazzling Monarch butterfly every year. It's not an easy process, but soon, we can become more brilliant as our goal to becoming that man or woman that we need to be.

Life is a beautiful thing. We are created after the image of an amazing Father who has made it possible for this "second chance." He has given us the ability to choose and the outcome of each day and year depends upon the choices we make. Sometimes we have no control over the outcome, but we have control, most of the time of making it or breaking it. And here we are, another year gone and another one begun. What stories will be written? Only time will tell, but now is the time to write something beautiful, something amazing, something wonderful. This, my friends, is the best gift of 2011.