1 Kings 19:12 (New International Version)
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in
the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
As she ran errands with her children one spring day,
Kaylyn Dunne was thinking about this. She had just returned from a weekend
retreat that used the butterfly as its theme. The retreat had aroused her
desire for a deeper spiritual life, yet worried her too, because she had been
asked to be chairperson of the next retreat. Kaylyn had never been chairperson
of anything, and she felt quite inadequate. With her already crowded schedule
and a chronically ill son to care for, was God really calling her to do this?
She needed a sign.
"Mom, look!" her son suddenly exclaimed from
the back seat. Kaylyn almost hit the brakes. Fluttering in front of her, inside
the car, was a huge monarch butterfly. It was a vivid yellow, her favorite
color. With the car moving at 45 miles per hour and the windows open barely a
crack, how had it gotten in?
The winged visitor quivered around delicately, then
landed like a little puff on the dashboard. Awed, the children stared at it.
"It must be frightened," Kaylyn told them. "Open the windows,
and let it fly out." They did, but despite the breeze, the butterfly
stayed. Kaylyn pulled into the library parking lot. "Let's leave the
windows down while we're gone," she suggested. But when they returned to
the car, the monarch was still sitting on the dashboard, as if awaiting them.
Bemused, Kaylyn finished the errands, drove home, opened
the car doors, went into the house with her enthralled children, and waited.
Eventually the butterfly leisurely emerged, circled the house in a kind of
embrace, and flew off. "I got to thinking of the timeliness of its
arrival, right after I had prayed," Kaylyn says. Did God intend it as a
sign that He was near? That He had plans for her to move more fully into life, to
shed her cocoon and spread her wings? Kaylyn accepted the chairperson job, and
it became her path to a richer spiritual life. Since that day, butterflies seem
to visit Kaylyn often, especially when she needs encouragement. One of the best
encounters came when a friend held a prayer service in her living room for
Kaylyn's son. One of the group pointed to the front window and exclaimed,
"Look outside!" Everyone did. Tapping gently against the glass was a
brown butterfly. Just a coincidence? Perhaps. But it came in the middle of a
snowstorm.
Flowers, rainbows, butterflies.nature's tender treasures.
Perhaps God uses them to bridge the barriers between heaven and earth, to let
us know that as He watches the sparrow He surely watches us.
Dear Lord we thank You for always being there and
communicating with us. We pray that our eyes and ears would be open to the
things You bring into our life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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