Transformation

My husband's college roommate reminded me about my birthday last week that every moment really is a birthday. We are not the same as what we were, nor what we will become. I look a lot more gray and wrinkled than I did 40 years ago when I graduated from high school or five years later when I graduated from college. But I know that God is transforming me into beauty from ashes.

This Blue Morpho is quite ordinary and commands little attention when it is closed up. But until it closes there is a gleeful throng of children at heart trying to get a peek at the gorgeous blue wings fluttering magically through the tropical mist. Each seeker hopes it will land soon, just for a second, with wings open. The rare moments when I have found one open are taken as wonderful gifts of divine appointment.

I just recently saw Alice in Wonderland. Several times Alice was told she was not the Alice that was there previously, and she was not the Alice that could face the coming dangers. However, she was BECOMING that person. She was being grown and transformed to be able to accomplish tasks, fight battles, and make mature decisions.

Isn't it comforting and exciting to know that we are being transformed from glory to glory?
Isn't it nice to know we are works in progress in the hands of the potter?

~~~

Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God~~this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.~~his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2

Seeing Red

One of the things I look forward to most in spring is seeing the cardinals in the as yet empty limbs of trees. They are easier to spot without the leaves, but flighty none-the-less when they know they have been discovered. They fly off just as the camera is getting focused.

This past week I took myself out to a park where I have had some success at mimicking the cardinal song and getting them to stay closer for photographs. I was able to track four different cardinals fairly closely. They seemed intrigued that they heard their song being sung. Their curiosity and my persistence paid off. I was delighted to see and hear these beauties.

I have been thinking about the word, persistence. I have been 'seeing red' because of an unwanted persistence. I forgot some important lessons about persistence. Living well and being happy is the best revenge. It does not do me any harm mentally when I refocus to go 'see the red' of the cardinal instead. I take the thoughts hostage and think about something that is healthy to my mind and body. I ask God to help me not revisit things that harm me. I have been taught to lay things down and allow the renewal of my mind. What I give free reign in my mind is either life-giving or life-stealing. Sometimes I forget the lesson that scripture has given about thinking.

I am recommitted to turn my thinking to those things of Phil. 4:8. I love these words because they don't tell you what NOT to think about, but what TO think about. It is like when someone suggests "Don't think about the color BLUE", that is exactly what you see in your mind. Instead, if someone says "THINK about the color RED", you see RED. It is the true path to mental and physical health and praising God with my mind and body: submit my thinking by following the directions of what TO think about! Your quality of life, no matter the circumstances, will improve.

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Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus.
Phil. 2:5

Whatever is true...noble...right...
pure...lovely...admirable~
if anything is excellent or praiseworthy~
think about such things.
Phil. 4:8

Taste...

Taste and see that the Lord is good!

(Great Yellow Mormon)
photographed at Butterflies in the Garden

Looks like...

When I was adding walnuts to my cereal this morning I noticed how much a half walnut resembles a butterfly. There is mimicry all through nature of such similarities. Sometimes flowers will look like birds or animals/plants will take on colors to camouflage themselves or appear to be a poisonous specimen.

I am so captivated by butterflies and the transformation they go through in their cocoons to become something so beautiful. The analogy has been made probably millions of times, but applies to how we are transformed into beauty from ashes, from failures, from death of old self, to what God would have us be. That birthing process is most often painful. It involves submission. Most human beings do not find that a pleasant experience. Especially since it seems we face it over and over again. Willingness to die to old ideas, old self, is the key to being clay to the Master. I want to look like Jesus, so I continue to press in to turning my will and my life over to His care; to do with me as He wills.

Inside/Outside

Butterflies in the Garden has again come to the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden. It is one of my favorite places, even though the fee has doubled since its last visit. I went the second day, in spite of overcast and cold weather, thinking that there might not be as many people. I was right; there were only a few people there with me.

With camera in hand I entered into the misty, warm conservatory. I didn't see a butterfly in sight. I had expected that they would be all less active because of the overcast cool day. But after having given my camera a chance to defog, I began seeing some activity. The most incredible huge blue butterflies were flying around like some made up creatures in a kids' movie. They were often flying around in pairs, so close yet just out of reach. Eyes of everyone around followed to see where they might land and provide a photo op. One continued to land on one of the volunteer's bright yellow sweater. But the beautiful blue was not to be captured there against that sunny color.

The thing about the Blue Morpho is that it immediately closes its wings shut upon landing. It is much protected by the drab colors of the underwing providing camouflage to anything that might be dangerous. It is usually impossible to photograph these beauties with their 8-10 inch wingspan open no more than a second or two after landing. Many volunteers told me as much. But I had gotten the impossible photo before, and was confident that I would get the opportunity again. I turned the corner to see a Morpho fully open on a leaf and slowly raised my camera. What a prize!

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I started thinking about how our outsides and insides look different. I like to be around people who I am comfortable enough with that I am the same outside and inside. Sometimes discernment keeps me from revealing too much of myself. That is not a bad thing. There is a time to be open and a time to be closed off.

However, there is the inner being, through God's spirit, that is like that stunning blue of the Blue Morpho. That beauty is strengthened, rooted, and powered by love. We may look a little funny and uninteresting on the outside, but we are GLORIOUS creatures on the inside; especially if we know that we are established by and for God.

~~~
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power, through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpassed knowledge~~that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen!
Eph.3:16-21