We Can't Stay a Caterpillar Written By Bambi Lynn

I wanted to share this story because it was so close to my heart. brought back memories of old and a moment in time that has captured my heart, and I will never be the same. Life changes you. Each day we are going through our journey and finding purpose in the process. We are always becoming, the moments in our lives that change us forever have the greatest impact. But then the smallest moments become the biggest. Nothing is unused in the hands of our maker. He even uses every scrap of paper that we put our dreams and heartbreak on. Life lessons are just that, lessons. They keep us moving. We have to walk to learn and grow to become.

During my homeschooling years, so many things made me laugh and so many lessons make me want to go back and live again. I don't remember how we started walking the fields every summer looking for milkweed, with the anticipation of finding a monarch egg that we can take home and watch this amazing cycle of life, caterpillar to butterfly. While driving anywhere I would stop the car, if I saw any kind of milkweed on the side of the road. The excitement was undeniable, and I may have been a little more excited than the rolling of the eyes children that were in the backseat saying, "mom we don't have to stop every time" When we got those eggs home or if we were lucky caterpillars that have already started the process of their journey of becoming. We had a big fish tank that became the home for our caterpillars. Every morning, we would wake up with anticipation of something happening. Was this going to be the day that they would J, ready to start the next stage of their lives in the chrysalis? We were spectators to their world; we were the look outers of something special to begin. We didn't want to look away afraid we would miss something.

The fascinating stages of a butterfly has always captured me. I have a dream of writing a book one day about the life of the butterfly and how it uniquely describes the stages of salvation and the life of a Christian. The thought that the caterpillar has everything within him to become something totally different than how he came into this world. How his journey isn't easy, and it takes him through a process of change. How his changes took him through a dark time so he could become what he was always meant to be.

A butterfly from start to finish, changing from one thing to another is a total forty days.

An egg is born and placed on a milkweed, and he only eats milkweed to grow-The Milk of the word

five times the caterpillar sheds his skin, the number of grace

When ready to start the process of changing, he forms his body into the letter J

He starts forming a protection around himself, where he will spend time changing into something he doesn't know yet.

To seal the chrysalis a gold crown is sewn at the top by the caterpillar, the last stage before darkness falls upon him

The caterpillar mind has to renewed, the new mind will form, out with the old and in with the new-renew our minds daily the Bible tells us

He spends time alone being transformed, through the darkest moment of his life, he is changing.

When he is emerging, you can't touch him until the blood has gone through every part of his wings.

When he is ready, he flies away being something totally different than when he started. The stages had changed him into something beautiful.

Doesn't all of that sound like our lives? Everything we need in life to succeed has already been placed within us. All the darkness we endured forms us and changes us. We walk around thinking something is about to happen but, are not prepared for the transformation because we know there will be dark moments. But, if we hang on to the past and what we thought there, we can't grow into something God had intended for us to become. What happens if the butterfly was Gods end results for us all along? What if all this was his plan in the first place? But, in order to get there, we had to go through some stuff. We had to prepare our minds with the "milk" of the word. We had to be built up so when darkness came, we wouldn't be afraid, because we knew that something beautiful comes out of storms. The faith came within the 'Milk" of the word. It was what fed us for the Journey. The lessons of the Caterpillar have captivated me from the moment I walked in my first field, when I read my first book, and when I saw that first butterfly emerge out of the darkness changed and transformed, and opened up his wings for all to see, what the process looks like at the end of the Journey. Then flies off to find his tribe to ride the rest of his life with the others that found beauty in the process.

 I miss those days and miss walking the fields of milkweed to find just one caterpillar or one egg, so I can go home and watch and learn from this miracle of transformation. Each year one of my closest friends continues this tradition and shares with all of us the stages and the miraculous miracle of change. She gives me a piece of my homeschooling years with my children. This year she was doing something different with naming them. Each year she has a theme, and this year was the honoring the passing of loved ones in her family and friends' family. When I received the call that a boy was born, that he had emerged amongst her rhubarb plants. I knew it was my butterfly, Isaac. in memory of my grandson. To some people this may seem strange but, to me it was miraculous to be reminded that my grandson lived. To me it was honoring him as the healing process has been hard and really dark moments but, he was part of my transformation story. He will always be part of my stages of life, as I continue to believe that the "milk" of the word has transformed me and taught me that nothing goes unnoticed by God, and everything is used for his glory. My healing are moments like this day. When someone remembered my loss and gives me a gift of nothing lost but, the emerging of a butterfly from the darkest moment when my world stood still. and all has been found in the moments like this. That the story continues, and Isaac is placed again in a memory that will continue to give me blessings amongst the storms

The story of the Monarch is a precious story to me. The storms that the caterpillar has to go through is real. God has placed everything within him. He has to believe like us that life lessons are for reason we may never understand until we emerge or become. The mind of the caterpillar was renewed in the process of the darkest moments in his life. I don't think that is a mistake or a mishap, He has to put on the mind of a butterfly. Like we have to put on the mind of Christ. If he came into the transformation of a butterfly with a caterpillar thought process, he would never understand that he could fly. he would have never got that he was going places and wings would lead him there. he would have the mind that life was just milkweed, just the word, when life is more of purpose for all things, and it was his time to find that his wings were designed for him to fly. Just like God gives us wings to fly out our purpose that he has birthed in us from the foundation of time.

                             Time to fly my friend, you now have wings