To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. Isaiah 61:3

“True hearts, however, mourn not only for their past transgressions,
but they also sorrow over their present imperfections. If you are what you should be,
dear friend, I am quite certain you see a great deal in yourself to grieve over.
You cannot live as you would live.
Whenever I meet with a person who feels that he is perfect,
I conceive at once that he has not yet attained even a remote conception
of what true perfection must be.” ~C.H. Spurgeon

In my morning reflections, I am reminded of the beautiful butterflies we had in our yard this past spring. The lilacs seemed to draw them from every direction, and they were abundant.

However, before they arrived in our yard to bring us joy these very butterflies were forced to undergo quite a dark and rigorous experience. You see, before they were the amazingly colorful and fragile butterflies that we watched floating so gracefully on the breeze, they were something else entirely.

As I understand it, a butterfly starts out as a tiny little egg, from there it grows into larva, and then into a caterpillar; where it stays in that state for some time, voraciously eating leaves until growing to its maturity. Not very romantic, is it?

Keeping it short and sweet, the caterpillar then seeks a place to hibernate, creates a cocoon around itself and hangs for however long it takes for its transformation to take place. Once the wings and body are fully developed, the creature then fights its way free from that dark, confining place and bursts forth as the beautiful anomaly we know as the butterfly.

As I thought about the progression of the larva to the butterfly, I was reminded of how we as individuals must often go through a progression in our growth in Christ. Oh, for sure, we are saved by believing on the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Ahhhh, but there the journey really begins.

From my observation, our life is often much like the butterfly.  We start out young in the Lord, ready to bring down mountains, devouring our way through the Word, or finding good works to do, which bring us feelings of accomplishment. And then, we hit a dark spot in our spiritual life, a cocoon so to speak.

There we must wait, developing in our pain, working through our issues, and growing into the full development of what God would have us be. Or, sometimes we give up, languish in our darkness, and take another path. But for the sake of this article, let’s say that we press on. We wait in the darkness, trusting that there is a better day ahead; and finally, we strive to break free from the cocoon and become all that God intended us to be.

Oh, the glory of that moment, that millisecond when we see our first glimmer of light, and then the epic second when we burst out into the presence of the sun (Son) in all of our glory, spreading our wings, letting them dry, wondering what in the world the world holds for us now.

Our time of sorrow is ended, our ashes are blown away on the spring breezes, and our beauty is there for all to behold.

In my time of prayer and study this morning, it came to me that this time we are living in now is much like the period the caterpillar is in the cocoon. We are being challenged daily, sometimes hourly; things may be difficult, even dark at times. We may not see a glimmer of hope in the sorrow that surrounds us. And yet, He is preparing us for a day that soon will come; a day  ~ or a thousand years and more ~ that we will spend in eternity with Him.

If, like me, you are looking forward to that day approaching, and are ready to trade your ashes for beauty – the eternal beauty of a life with Him, then I encourage you, don’t become discouraged by the hard things in this life. Don’t give up hoping for the impossible. It will get better, things will turn around, and there will come a time when we will be all that He intended us to be. We will burst forth from these heavy cocoons and spread our wings for His delight.

Our true perfection when that day comes will be more than we can even think or imagine.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to take up my garment of praise, ready for my ashes of sorrow to be turned into beauty.