Newness of Life
My absolute favorite season of the year is spring. I love to watch the birds building their nests. We have a pair of barn swallows who love to raise two sets of birds under our porch every year. The trees take on new life as leaves cover their once bare limbs. Flowers rise from the ground and bloom in a wide variety of colors. I walk by my rose bush and my senses are inundated with their sweet aroma as well as the beauty of their delicate peach-colored petals. Plants, herbs, and vegetables are filling my garden spot with different shades of green. Each plant having its own special shaped leaf and characteristics. Dragonflies and butterflies are beginning to fly around. They rest upon a plant and spread their wings in the sunshine.
A butterfly spreading its wings.
In my mom’s herb garden she has fennel. It smells like black licorice when you rub your hand across its leaves. Caterpillars love it. They cover the plant every year eating as much as they can until it is time to form a chrysalis. One year my children and I collected a caterpillar and put it in a mason jar with small air holes drilled through the top of the lid. We placed plenty of fennel in the jar with the caterpillar to nourish its growing body. We intended to watch the miracle of metamorphosis. Just as we hoped, the caterpillar ate until its body was fat, and then from the stem of the fennel plant it surrounded its body into a chrysalis. By this time the fennel plant had died and was just a brown stick in the jar. The chrysalis too was brown and stiff. It looked dead. I was very sad as I had so hoped that our experiment would work.
I left it alone anyway hoping that this was normal. A few days later a wet butterfly emerged. It was tired. It was wet. It stood very still on the stick of dead fennel. As the day progressed it began spreading out its wings very slowly. Soon it looked just like a butterfly. We carried the jar outside and carefully placed it on a rose bush. The butterfly soaked up the sun. Its body and wings were drying out nicely. It began flapping its wings almost like it was testing that they would work. Then all of sudden it fluttered to the next bush. Then it flew to one of our trees. Before long it was completely gone.
My children and I rejoiced at what we witnessed. It is truly a miracle that God created a caterpillar to build a chrysalis where its body would change into something all together different. Our family could not help but think about Jesus. He died and rose three days later. His form was changed so much so that people did not immediately recognize him. As a Christian, his resurrection means everything to me. It separates him from all the other great religious leaders of the world. He rose from the dead defeating death.
Look around you and see what else reminds you of rebirth, resurrection, and newness of life. It might surprise you how many examples God gives us during the spring. As it is Good Friday, I just want to wish everyone, “Happy Easter!”
Happy Easter to you too! Lovely article. God bless.