The Butterfly

I posted this in a blog on my Myspace page, but I am reposting part of it here since i did not do it here before. I will comment first on a recent conversation with Emily that pertains to the subject and the blog follows......

The blog is particularly important to me again since a conversation I had with my daughter the other night. I have been drawn to the concept othe metamorphosis that the butterfly goes through for many reasons that of course are obvious to us all, but it fascinates me on a spiritual and emotional level.

But it hit me on a level I have never even begun to understand in my life until I tried to explain a concept to Emily as we were having our bedtime paryer discussion the other night.

We were talking about how difficult it is to do good sometimes and I was telling her it is ok for her to just talk to Jesus and to God and ask them to help her to do the right thing right now, because she is not feeling like doing the right thing. TO actually admit to Jesus that she wants to do bad, and to ask Him to forgive her and to help her to make the right choice, whether it is to be nice to Blake or to obey mommy and daddy or to do her chores when she doesn't want to do them or if she is tempted to lie or whatever it is that she is having a hard time with at that particular time.

So we talked aboutthat for a little bit. And then I told her how she could talk to Him anytime she wanted, she didn't have to pray to him just at night with mommy(although I've told her this many times, I reiterated it and made it sound very very special) and that no matter where she is in the world, that she can always talk to Jesus, and that He is always listening to her and that even more importantly SHE is always on God's mind. I explained to her that God created her and everything and with just His thought, so even the fact that she is lying here is proof that He is thinking of her. And so THAT's pretty incredible to know that the God of the Universe is thinking of you at all times!

And I went on to explain how important we were to Him that He sent the Holy Spirit that we would have a comforter with us in our hearts at all times. And this is wher it gets really interesting.

She said, "You mean in my bloody heart. he sitting in there watching tv or something?" I said, "No, silly, not in our physical heart! We have two hearts. A physical heart and a spiritual heart. The holy spirit is a spirit. So He resides in our spiritual heart. You remember when we talked about going to heaven and your soul goes to heaven but your body stays here?"

She said, "Yes!" She gets really excited when we talk about heaven, although I have only talked about the body/soul separating thing once with her, but she got the point beautifully at the time. But we talk about heaven and the golden streets and the angels singing and all that all the time.

"Well, we have a physical body and a spiritual body. Think about a butterfly. When a butterfly breaks out of its cacoon, what happens?"

She said, "It breaks it open and it flies up to heaven!"

I said, "That's right! ANd what is left behind?"

"The cacoon?" I said, "That's right the shell. But it's just an empty shell. The butterfly is like our spirit and when we die, our spirit has no use for the body anymore and we will have beautiful new bodies, beautiful butterfly bodies!"

She said, "With wings to fly up to heaven!" with a great big smile and it just was the most incredible moment.

And at that moment I saw the magnitude of the whole reason God gave of the creation of the butterfly in this world. For this VERY PURPOSE! To give us an example of the spiritual journey that we go through as dead in our sins, the sinner is even described as a worm in certain places in scripture, we are completely transformed through Christ, then we are given NEW bodies in heaven.

Our cacoon is LIFE here on earth! We cannot attain the true fulfillment of what our transformed bodies completely are until we are released from these shells which are our physical bodies, and that will happen in ALL its fullness at the end of days when we come into the Kingdom.

But the Butterfly is a mirror of what God has put is front of us as His model for change. We are butterflies inside, waiting, to be transformed, to be realized, to be honed, to be tempered, to be released so that we may fly.


Here is the original blog I posted before I had this conversation with Emily:


This is exactly why I CHOSE the word Transformation when I refer to my Makeover. Because I believe when you choose to really make over your body, true change has to take place from the inside out for it to remain. Otherwise you will gain all the weight back and be right back where you started.

Also I have not set out to just "lose Weight". I have always wanted real Transformation, inside and out, physically, mentally, and spiritually, in all the ways that matter.

Just as the caterpillar was always destined to become a butterfly, I am also destined to become better than I am. Where she goes, I must go.

When you look at the cacoon that houses the butterfly before it becomes the butterfly, what does it look like? An ugly, shapeless, sort of bland, colorless little shell. If you didn't already know what was going on inside you wouldn't have any idea of the wonders that are to come!

As the caterpillar goes through the stages of the metamorphosis, only it knows what exactly is happening at any given time inside that shell. Nobody outside that cacoon knows what goes on inside. They see the movement, they see the funny shape, they may hear funny noises and scoff. "What's she doing up there? Why'd she wrap herself up like that? She's sure taking a long time up there. "

Or more cruelly, "Did you hear what she said when she went in there? She want's to fly! She's just a caterpillar! She should just be content with who she is. She always was such a dreamer!"

But she knows who she was meant to be, and the first part of her life was just that, the first par tof her life. And she knows the changes that are happening. Others might not see them because they cannot see into the private places of her mind, her heart, her soul.

So she continues the journey through the quiet, secret, dark, and sometimes painful process of internal metamorphosis that is "The Change".

In her cacoon, the caterpillar MUST transform every process that she has lived her whole life by. She must repurpose her cells, her fibers, her proteins, her systems to new and wonderful purposes!

All this, in order to realize the fantastical, the crazy, the impossible, even the magical "dream" of giving wings to a worm.... the dream of giving flight to a feeble floor feeder!

And then.... when no one expects it.... the cacoon is broken. The ugly wrappings that protected her through "The Change" release a new creature from it's wrappings.

Unbelievably, what was once earthbound is now vibrantly colored and heavenbound!

THAT is God's way of showing ALL of us that REAL change is possible.

The butterfly is not a logical, relatively simple evolutional change from a baby to a child or a child to an adult. This is a change from one kind of creature to another!

If a simple insect is capable of such a change, what is God capable of creating in US, when we let Him?

So I say, Dream On! Let the Transformation continue!

Dropping Like Flies!

Dropping like Flies!


Just an update. Making Over Mommy marches on! When we moved to San Antonio I was still hovering around 183-185 lbs. At the beginning of summer I was 185 lbs.

Yesterday I the scale said 169! and today 168.8! I know the tenths don't really count but when the tenths don't ever budge for years, the tenths DO get you excited. I also know that water fluctuates and the tenths go up and down throughout the day, and some people, like my mother even gain a couple of pounds of water weight throughout the day, which is why I ALWAYS weigh myself at the beginning of the day, after I pee, before I eat a morsel.

But I am and always have been Steady Freddy as far as weight goes. It does not fluctuate more than half a pound from day to day, one pound at the most, unless I have severely overeaten, or around "that" time of the month.

So when I stepped on the scale today, I was quite pleased. 168.8 officially broke the 15 pound goal, from 184! If I count my highest weight of 185, then I have lost 16 pounds this summer! Woooo-Hoooooo!