As I chatted with my mom while she watered her plants, I noticed something small and green moving on the parsley. “You’re soaking that caterpillar,” I said and my mom quickly shut the water off. “Oh! I didn’t even see him!”

She ran inside to get me a little box to put him in to show the kids and I held out my hand. My new friend crawled on.

A few minutes later, Reed and N came out to play badmitton in the yard. I called them over. Reed looked at him for just a moment before casually saying “cool” and running off. But, N sat down beside me.

“Що це?” (What is it?)

I stumbled over my words. My Ukrainian is so limited. “Ummm… метелик.” Not knowing the word for caterpillar, I told her it was a butterfly.

She laughed. “Метелик?”

“Yes,” not sure how to explain metamorphosis with a language barrier.

She just stared at it skeptically for awhile. I know she was wondering how this could possibly be true.

We’re having a hard week with N. The kind where I really wonder if I’m cut out for this. I can see all of the brokenness and pain of N’s short life come out in her behavior and I truly wonder if this summer is making any difference. I’m standing in front of vase that’s been shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and I’m trying to put it back together with scotch tape and elmer’s glue. And, trying to keep my kids from cutting themselves on the broken pieces.

Holding this odd little creature and sitting with N, I heard the whisper… she’s a butterfly.

I’m like N, sitting there, looking at a caterpillar and being told she’s a butterfly. A child of God, full of beauty. How can something so funny looking like a caterpillar ever grow wings and become one of God’s most beautiful creatures? How can someone so (rightfully) angry and sad like N ever move on to become a healed and healthy person?

Baby steps. A few minutes of pouting where a tantrum may have been a week ago. An apology where she may have run off to hide before. I can see it happening if I slow down to notice and celebrate with her. It’s a slow transformation, but so is the butterfly’s.

Currently on repeat:

“We have tasted and seen of the never ending grace of the King
Where the broken and the least of the least come alive.“