Caterpillar to Butterfly

Well today it is Monday but I am going to write about Sunday!

Yesterday I went back to my old church which is a Methodist church. They ask me to go and play the organ sometimes when the usual organist wants a week off. I haven't played the church organ since I was there this time last year but I remembered how it all works. I was a church organist at a Church of England church, starting in my student days - doing that for about ten years. It's a bit strange to play the old hymns again because I am used to more modern worship now. The service included the "wiggly waggly worm" song which I know very well from school. The kids love it and the teachers hate it. Also a few well known methodist hymns and that old favourite "He's got the whole world in His hands".

The theme was changes. The example was of a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. Here are some of my thoughts...

Being a butterfly is what everyone wants to be - compared with the caterpillar the butterfly is beautiful and free. But you can't be a butterfly unless you spend time as a caterpillar first. Most of the time we have a dream and we know it's what we want. We can even know that it's what we are meant to have... yet there are times when we get fed up with the caterpillar stage. We just don't want to be crawling around on leaves when our dream is to fly. Seeing butterflies in the air, we just want to be like them and compare ourselves to them - then see ourselves as ugly and unable to fly. Being at the caterpillar stage requires perseverance.

After being a caterpillar, there's the pupa stage. You are left alone and you are made to struggle. That's when it seems like you'll always be struggling. The struggle is so important though. A man saw a caterpillar in it's pupa stage and felt sorry for it because it was struggling so much. Deciding it was the best thing to do, he cut open the pupa to let the half-formed caterpillar out, but instead of being free the caterpillar died. It needed the struggle to develop strength in it's wings and without the struggle couldn't fly and just died. We have to learn to see our struggles as something that makes us stronger, that develops our potential, that brings us closer to being a butterfly.