Butterfly

The butterfly is a fascinating creature. It is truly a work of art: beautiful colors and delicacy, flying high and wide on gossamer wings- free.
But the butterfly didn't begin its life in such a lofty state. In its earliest stages it was a caterpillar; crawly, slow, unattractive, plodding along inch by inch. I wonder if in its wildest dreams it ever imagined what its destiny could be.
Later in its development it spent time locked in a cocoon of it's own making - alone and perhaps even secure - warm and safe. There, through the simple yielding of its nature to a higher nature, it becomes one of God's most wondrous and glorious creatures.
Before transformation was complete, however, an intense and agonizing struggle had to be worked through. In order to become the magnificent creature it was destined to be, it first had a life and death struggle to work its way out of the cocoon - an exhaustive and seemingly impossible task for such a delicate creature. Could she endure?
On one occasion a well-meaning person watching this struggle decided to help the helpless butterfly, since it seemed such a gargantuan task for it to have to do on its own. So the person carefully sliced an opening in the cocoon with a razorblade and the butterfly was indeed able to get out much more quickly. The problem was that the butterfly was never able to fly. You see, the struggle is actually part of the butterfly's way of becoming a butterfly, and the strength it gains through the struggle gives it the strength needed for flying. By solving the butterfly's problem, the person had created a flightless butterfly.
The butterfly's develpment from a crawly, creeping, caterpillar to a glorious free-flying butterfly depends on the butterfly's acceptance and achievement of it's own struggle - on its faith that the struggle would lead it to something better.
If only we, as people, would accept our lives and the changes in it with the same faith as that of the lowly caterpillar, perhaps we too, would see that we can "fly". We are called to pray and trust in willingness to wait in patient expectation. Will not God who provides such a glorious end for the little caterpillar provide for us in a way that we cannot envision? Even in our wildest dreams?

My Neighbors

I live in a beautiful , normal, peculiar neighborhood. We are protected by a hugh mountain almost on top of our heads which is beautiful in whatever season we happen to be in......I was just interrupted from my writing by a neighbor who brought me soup, because I have been sick. The thing that makes this so incredible is that my friend that made the soup has cancer. But of course, here in our neighborhood a little thing like cancer doesn't stop you from making soup for your friend. To make the reader understand what this story is about, I have to go back a few years, like 30 years. A group of young people from different walks of life someway or another ended up in this corner of the valley, in a neighborhood on a hill below a beautiful mountain called Lone Peak. We were all pretty young, just getting started in our first homes....excited to put yards in and have families, which is exactly what we did. We worked on yards, furnished our homes and had lots of children. I don't know whether we were prepared or not for what lay ahead, maybe we grew into our preparedness together. As I see it we still don't know a whole lot, but we know more that we did back then....we continue to not get what's going on, but we continue to live through our lives, learning and growing from each other..................more to come

grandchildren

i am sitting here at abby's house watching a beautiful baby sleep. baby's are a miracle. they make you feel good when you don't. just hearing their excited voices over the phone after a fun vacation to disneyworld.( the pa despain gang) is all it takes to keep me going. i have been feeling kind of down this week,wondering if i am going to have a sinus infection the rest of my life, and also wondering if it will ever stop snowing...i know i shouldn't complain as i have come so far...so on to the babies where you get a sense of hope and peace. i know that someday my sinuses will dry up and the sun has to come out sometime...so as i watch jake stretch and start to wake up i can picture him this summer rolling down our hill in the backyard and watching taylor,jack,hogan and luke playing baseball. it's a lovely picture.