Life Cycles

Since I flipped the calendar page over to September I have been yearning for fall. There are hints of it- the air is a little cooler (some might even call it crisp!) after the sun goes down and I see more leaves falling off trees. With my camera in hand, I set out to find fall color.

What I found was a delightful little garden in front of a quaint shop in historic downtown Ellicott City. There were flowers of every color and description and I paused to admire them. Then I noticed the movement... and saw dozens and dozens of butterflies!

All butterflies are exquisitely beautiful. In fact, I have never seen an ugly butterfly... and I bet you haven't either. But butterflies don't start out as butterflies. They begin life as caterpillars... fuzzy, plump little critters that wreak havoc on crops as they do little more than stuff themselves on leaves. They blend in with their environment- their markings look like the plants they eat.

Once the caterpillar has grown as big as it will get, it hangs upside down and becomes a chrysalis where metamorphosis occurs. Tissue, limbs and organs of the caterpillar have all been changed by the time a beautiful butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. Yeah, I remembered all that from high school biology.

And then I began thinking about a Christian's life cycle. We begin life like a caterpillar (okay, not the fuzzy, plump part...well, maybe some...). We blend in with the world; our goal is to acquire things (eat leaves). Then we learn about Jesus, acknowledge our sin and repent accepting Him as our Savior, and we become a chrysalis. We are changed from the inside out. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!" We become a beautiful butterfly.

Of course, there the analogy ends because the butterfly will die in a few weeks and be gone but we, as Christians, have eternal life. As I stood quietly shooting 138 photos, I noticed there were no caterpillars, just butterflies flying around a beautiful garden eating sweet nectar. It seemed like "butterfly heaven."

You can see the proboscis (the black thread-like thing) as he gets a drink of nectar!

So back to the fall color I was searching for. Some of the trees are beginning to think about changing color but I only found two trees that actually are in the beginning stages of color change. Maybe fall isn't quite here yet.