The Mystery Of The Green Leafy Butterfly

Lately I've been thinking a lot about serving God, how more often great things happen when I am simply open to the opportunities presented without warning as opposed to being proactive to work on God's behalf. Don't get me wrong; I believe there is a place for both, but sometimes it seems that the truly miraculous just shows forth with more force when I have absolutely no idea that it is coming -when I'm not busy TRYING to "make it happen."


Today I found the most amazing butterfly I have ever seen on a post outside of the kids' school. It was huge! I'd guess the wing span to be about 6-7 inches across and the wings looked JUST EXACTLY like an oak leaf. They were green, with raised veins just like a tree leaf and in the same pattern. The insect itself was rather menacing only because of it's size and my particular wimpiness, so I extracted it from the post by pressing it's wings together between my forefingers, assuming it to be dead. After all, the wind was blowing roughly 40 miles/hour and the poor thing's wings were flapping violently in the direction of each breeze as it came.


But to my amazement, when I picked the bug up without it making any attempt at flight, it's little legs began to "bicycle" furiously. I was SO EXCITED. Why? Because my son's homeroom teacher is also the science teacher for fifth grade and she's a wonderful woman and she EATS THIS KIND OF STUFF UP! (with excitement, not LITERALLY, of course.)


I walked back into the school knowing my friend at the front desk would be equally squeamish as myself when I showed the bug to her. She was. But she was also excited and her eyes lit up AFTER she stepped back a ways. "That is the most unusual butterfly I have ever seen...... YES!" she said. "Go ahead and go upstairs and just knock on the door before you go in because they ARE in class and give it to her. Usually it's not good to interrupt the morning routine, but in this case I think it's perfect." Then she turned to the two teachers standing in the office. "Oh, I think this is just what she needs." The math teacher explained that the English the teacher had just announced her pregnancy, and that Mrs. R. was hurting all over again because she has struggled for several years trying to have a child. Half of the fifth grade teachers are currently expecting, and except for Mrs. R., the rest are mothers and fathers already.

As I type this I ache for her. The way she is as a teacher proves what a wonderful mother she will make and I am going to pray for her so often now that I know. I did see her briefly in the hallway on the way up to her room. She had left to come wipe her eyes because she had been crying, so I didn't keep her. I don't know what that butterfly will represent specifically to her, but I am praying that God will use something about it that she probably knows that I don't to send her a message of His love while she waits to fill her own cocoon. Something only she as the Science teacher knows about it's green leafy nature as opposed to a more brilliantly colored butterfly.



And once again I am humbled that God allows me to be blessed even as he blesses another, just by allowing me to be an instrument that I didn't seek to be. Just by letting me be His hands and feet without even realizing that I was. I loved to be bearer of that which made her smile and turned off her tears if only for a moment.