COCOONS AND CONVERSIONS
by Fleta Mathews
“Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” I Cor. 15:51
As I watch with pleasure the butterflies around our home, I am reminded of an incident that occurred many years ago. It was one of the favorite feats I have observed in nature. I’m referring to the miraculous metamorphosis of the beautiful butterfly. From a creepy, crawly, wiggly worm, this wondrous work of God emerges.
While teaching school, one day this transformation was experienced by my entire class when we were studying insects (Lepidoptera) in science class. One of the students brought in a branch from a nearby bush that held the pupa of a Monarch butterfly. Carefully, I pinned the branch to our bulletin board.
Day by day we observed the dull, drab thing and wondered if anything would ever happen. Finally, one
morning, we saw the cocoon begin to split and slowly the butterfly began to emerge. Some of my students wanted to help it get out as it seemed to struggle so slowly. If we had helped it escape its prison, it would not have survived. It had to come out and complete the process on its own that God had established. We watched as it flapped it’s wet wings for what seemed like a long time. Twenty-four young faces (plus mine) watched in wonder and silence. Finally, it flew around our room, to the delight of us all. With a mixture of gladness and sadness, we opened the door to set it free. Soon it was out of sight, but the memory of that rare experience remains with me today.
What a perfect picture of the person who is changed — metamorphosized — by the power of the Holy Spirit of God! If we yield to His transforming power in our hearts and lives, we will be able to look back and say with the songwriter, “He made something beautiful, something good of my life… All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife… He made something beautiful of my life”. Other hymns have given us further insight with such words as, “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, Since Jesus came into my heart”. But the change in the heart, as wonderful as it is, awaits the metamorphosis of Corinthians 15:51-58…
“Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord”.