Being patient during the process of healing.
“He has made everything beautiful in His time” Ecclesiastes 3:11
I watched a video recently of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Every stage of a butterfly’s transformation is important and essential. If any step is missing in the process of metamorphosis, it will not turn into a butterfly. The video showed how the process began with a caterpillar being a egg, then hatching into a larvae. The larvae then became a pupa and finally it became a butterfly. During the chrysalis, the butterfly is wrapped in a cocoon, while it transforms and changes into a butterfly. If the cocoon is opened early, the butterfly won’t be able to fly properly. It’s a great example of how being patience is important!
We can learn a lot from the metamorphosis of a butterfly. If you are in a process of transformation, healing, growth and change, you know that it takes time and every step is important.
What are you working through in your life today?
What does God want to heal, restore, rebuild and make beautiful again?
If we are committed to the process of healing, God can bring hope, joy, love and strength into our lives.
Have you felt like you have been in a process of transformation, just like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly?
Sometimes as we go through a season of healing, and we are dealing with hurt, pain, rejection and betrayal, we don’t feel like things are beautiful. It sometimes feels like things are messy. Its easy to feel like things are hard. If we allow God to love us, in the middle of our mess, he can make the things we have gone through into a testimony. God’s intention for us, as we go through healing is to restore us, and bring us out the other side with a testimony to help and encourage others. While you in the process of healing, its hard to see or feel like things are going to be beautiful.
"Our greatest transformation happens through the toughest times" Anna Pereira
One of the best things to do, while we are in the process is to get some fresh perspective. Sometimes we are focused on what we are facing and we forget to look at the bigger picture. Its easy sometimes give into the temptation to give up altogether when something feels hard and its not changing. When we take some time to get some perspective, it can help us see that what we are going through can help us build strength, resilience, learn new skills, become more understanding, patient and kind and we all need these seasons of life to help us mature and grow. We won't reach our full potential in our lives, if we pull out of things when they are hard. Its going through them, and facing them, that can help us develop and reach new heights in our lives.
Sometimes we need to reframe what we are facing, and rather than see it as a negative thing, see it as a positive opportunity to become a better, stronger, wiser person.
When we reframe it, it can help us have more patience to push through the challenges.
Transformation is necessary for you to become a different person.
You need to go through the changes, the process and the pain to get to the final stages of ‘metamorphosis’.
I love the quote by Suzy Ross that says "Transformation is an ongoing process that tend to appear ordinary, when, in fact, something extraordinary is taking place".
Do you want to spend you life like a caterpillar that never turns into a butterfly?
Are you prepared to go through the changes to help you turn into a beautiful butterfly?
Do you trust that God? When you fully trust God with your life and future, you can let go and find peace in whatever trials you are facing. If we put our trust in ourselves, others or the circumstances, we will be unsettled when we face changes. When our trust is in God, we can be anchored in him and put our hope in him. This gives us peace, when we are in the process of healing and change.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5
Wherever you are in your journey today, let me encourage you to see this process as something that is a positive thing for you and if you are patient, it can help you grow and mature and take you to the next stage of your life.
Be patient in the process, its not going to last forever, but what will last is the strength, courage and wisdom that you are building.