The Metamorphosis Study

My family has a tradition that when we find a monarch caterpillar eating on a milkweed leaf, we take it in and raise it. Why? I don't know if this tradition has any specific meaning, other than enjoying God's creation and remembering the popular parallel to the Christian life. Just like that caterpillar, the Christian is transformed by God into something totally new. We've done this a couple times over the past eight years or so, but the most recent one, which is in a chrysalis in our house right now, struck me more than the others. We happened to get to see the caterpillar go into its chrysalis, and we noticed that the caterpillar's head splits to make way for the chrysalis. It got me thinking that when we go through trials, sometimes our "head splits" and we think there's no way we will possibly make it through. But in reality, God is slowly changing us into something new, and we won't know what this truly means until the day when we finally "earn our wings". He is a God who makes all things new- including us. So, I believe there really is more to this metaphor than most realize. For me, it put a new meaning to how special God's creation is.