This is the last of my Hurricane Florence stories… for now.
I had just returned home from my first outing after being cooped up all weekend due to hurricane Florence. As I ambled up the driveway, enjoying the sunshine, I spied a butterfly approaching and smiled. I stopped and watched to see where she would land. I didn’t want to scare her off.
She (just assuming she’s a girl; like “all cats are girls and all dogs are boys” when you’re a toddler) flitted onto the gravel driveway. She became nearly invisible until she turned sideways and fluttered her wings. I stood in the driveway, watching her show off her beautiful buckeye wings. I said bye-bye as she popped up and meandered away.
I have been fascinated by the tiny creatures ever since I was a child. Beautiful, delicate, and graceful describe how I think of butterflies. Beautiful butterflies need extra protection from killers like hungry predators, unruly children, and bad weather. That’s why God gave them compound eyes to vividly see their enemies and feather-light wings to go-go-go.
I wondered where she had hidden during the storm.
I imagined she clung to the inside of a tree hollow or under the edge of a roof, as her usual hideout—leaves—were being beaten and flung around by the storm. I wondered if she was hatching from her cocoon when Florence showed up. How did she know what to do?
That got me thinking about what resilience was, how much I had, and how to develop more.
You see, resilience is something we all need to get through tough times. Resilience is described as the ability to bounce back to your normal state during and after a difficult circumstance; to be elastic or flexible. How to develop it is another story.
It means you’ll go through difficult situations, but you’ll need to see multiple enemies coming at you and a plan to get away. You’ll need feather-light wings to do the actual getting away, perhaps in prayer. And you’ll need a place to hide that is stable. We might not be butterflies, but all this and more are found in Jesus and the Word of God, my friend.
The Word of God will teach you about the types of characters and character qualities to stay away from. Psalms and Proverbs are good starter books to learn these. The Spirit of God will warn you what to believe and who to connect with—or stay away from—as you interact with your world, Isaiah 30:20–21.
The feather-light wings we can access is prayer. In prayer, we can receive from the Lord all we need in this present life to live for Him, 2 Peter 1:3.
We can go to our usual hideouts during “regular” storms. The usual hideouts are totally inadequate for the mind-blowing, mind-numbing hurricanes that roar through our lives and threaten to overcome us.
That’s when we run to God. The Word declares that we can hide and rest in the Lord, whether our circumstances or our enemies are coming after us, Psalms 32:7 and 119:114, Proverbs 18:10.
The other thing is patience. Miss Butterfly had to wait out the storm in a shelter, like I did. Tiny and cramped, wet and woody—that’s all Miss Butterfly had to cling to. She had no idea how long it was going to take for her storm to pass. When it finally passed—as it always does—she flitted out of her hiding place and looked for her food source—overripe fruit and flowers, for nectar.
If you and I hope to develop resilience, so that we decrease and the presence and awareness of Christ grows in us, we must have patience. That seems to be in very short supply these days, at least in my life.
We’re a lot like butterflies, y’all.
We’re beautiful, like she’s beautiful. We might not feel like it, but Psalm 139 reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
We’re delicate, like she’s delicate. Butterflies are very transitory—they typically live for about a month. We will live more than a month, but we will still all die (unless we’re raptured). And as we age, our bodies become frail and wrinkled. Add to this how easily we are offended, and that is another description of delicate.
We’re graceful, like she’s graceful. We may not think of ourselves as moving beautifully like a ballerina, but we are grace-full. We are filled and moved by God’s grace as we respond to Him and His Word in humility. When we are humble, we can blend into the background until called out by the Lord. When He allows you the praise of men, then you can turn sideways and flutter your wings in gratitude to the One Who made it possible.
If Miss Butterfly was hatched during the storm, her butterfly DNA, which God gave her, instinctively told her to get under something firm, maybe the branch her cocoon was attached to, and crawl down into something more sheltering.
God’s DNA in our spirits can lead us to higher ground, firmer foundations, than our current shelter can cover.
Butterfly wings are covered with colorful scales, but the wings themselves are transparent. We could see a light right through them if it wasn’t for those scales. When our colorful personalities and talents and accomplishments are all stripped away, the light of Christ will shine through us as our souls become transparent, submissive to the authority and love of Christ.
We’re a lot like butterflies. Next time you see one, be sure to thank God for their delicate beauty and grace and learn a few lessons from them.
