A Chrysalis!

Look what I found when I was weeding - a Monarch butterfly chrysalis! If you look closely, you can see the black lines of the Monarch’s wings inside.

Here is the chrysalis about two weeks later. The chrysalis is getting darker, and you can see some orange in the wings.

Four days later, at 9:49 am, the chrysalis is clear and the monarch may “hatch” soon!

When I checked at 10:07, the new Monarch was clinging to the outside of its chrysalis!

You can see that the Monarch’s abdomen is big, and the wings are small. Soon the fluid will flow from the abdomen to the wings. Within hours, the wings will stretch out and harden, and the Monarch will fly to nearby flowers to drink some sweet nectar. Monarchs love butterfly bushes!

What struck me is that the now-flying Monarch could never fit back inside its chrysalis, nor would it want to. The butterfly is alive and free!

This reminded me of something Jesus once said to an inquiring religious ruler named Nicodemus. Jesus told him, “… unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) Nicodemus asked a very logical question: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” (v.4) Jesus told him that to be born again was to be born of the Spirit (v.8).

We can never go back into our mother’s womb. We can never undo the wrong things we have done, or the hurts that have been done to us. But we can start over…with Jesus! When we give the control of our lives over to Him, the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us. From that moment on, we never walk alone, through all the untangling that may need to be done, through all the healing that He will commence, through all the adventures that lie ahead.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)