Catherine the Caterpillar

     Every year for the past four or so years, my family has gotten a caterpillar from a lady in the home school group, also known as "The Butterfly Lady". This year was no different. We bought two, one for us and one for a friend. Of course these little guys needed names so we named them. We decided on Catherine the Caterpillar. It was only fitting that we named the other one William.
     The caterpillar came in a two liter bottle with a plant inside for it to eat.  This is what the caterpillar looks like when it comes home.

You can kind of see the caterpillar as it is eating in these pictures, but I wanted to post them because I thought they were hilarious.

Anyway! These things set off eating the plant as fast as they can. And with in a few days all the remains of the plant is the stem. After the caterpillar has had all it can eat, it climbs to the top of the bottle and hangs in the shape of a J for a few days. Usually, by the next time we look at it, it is already in its cocoon. However, this time we caught it while it was making its cocoon. (It was really cool, but pretty nasty looking.)

It looked like it was giving birth or something, but it was actually wiggling out of it's old caterpillar skin. It took it probably less than a min to get the skin off. Sadly, I don't have pictures of Catherine in her cocoon.
A few days after Catherine was done chilling in her cocoon, she emerged! She sat around in the bottle for a few hours waiting for her wings to dry. Then we took the bottle outside, cut it open and set her free. :)

 Buddy was so excited for the butterfly to come out because he, "ikes butterbys...they so big and stowng".

He was trying to get her to fly into his hand. He was using the sweetest voice, saying. "Come on. Come here".

      So as all this was happening I knew I was going to blog about it for two reasons. 1. I have nothing better to do with my time. 2. It made me think of 3 important truths.
     First truth is that God is the Creator. (Genesis 1-2) I don't understand how anyone could watch a caterpillar turn into a butterfly and not be in awe of how creative and powerful God is. We didn't have to tell the caterpillar to shake off it's skin and get in it's cocoon. God created her so that she knew what to do, when to do it and how to do it. This just blows my mind.

     Second truth: Each year that we get a caterpillar, I think of the children's book by Max Lucado called Hermie. I love that little book. As Hermie (a caterpillar) roams around he becomes sad that he's not anything "special" like the ant, the snail, or the lady bug. Hermie takes his sadness to God each night and asks, "Why did You make us so common?" And each night God would answer, "I love you, Hermie and Wormie. But I'm not finished with you yet. I'm giving you a heart like Mine." This made me think about all the times I have personally asked God something like, "Why don't I look like so and so?" or "What are You doing with my life?" God's Word says in Psalm 139:14, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." God doesn't make mistakes. EVER! The Bible also says in Philippians 1:6. " For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." See, God isn't finished with us yet. For that I am thankful.

    Third and final truth: As I watched Catherine gorge herself on the plant then go into a cocoon, then come out as a beautiful butterfly it made me think about salvation through Jesus Christ. Before salvation we are like Catherine as a caterpillar, crawling around gorging ourselves on sin. All Catherine did before becoming a butterfly was eat and eat. The same is true with us, all we do is sin and sin. Next, Catherine shed her old skin.  The same happens to us. Although it isn't a physical shedding it can still be pretty disgusting since we recognize how nasty our sin is. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." Just as Catherine shed her old skin, so do we which leads to the next step: a beautiful and new creation. Just as 2 Corinthians says, we are a new creature. When we accept Christ's free gift of salvation, we are changed forever. Christ makes us new. This change should be so different that people aren't even sure of who we are. Catherine's change from a caterpillar to a butterfly was drastic. If she had not have been in the bottle the whole time we had her, I would not have know that she was once a fat little caterpillar.
     I hope all that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is we should be like a butterfly that looks drastically different from a caterpillar.

 Oh, as a side note about William, the other caterpillar we gave to a friend. He went through the whole process just like Catherine. However, as he was sitting outside to dry... our friend's dog ate him... What can you say? It's a dog eat butterfly world out there.... :/