‘Butterfly Blessings’
Published 4:28 pm Wednesday, October 11, 2023
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By Michael Klaus, Minister
First Christian Church, Elizabethton
I got a message from Vera Peters (a former kindergarten teacher in Elizabethton) on Sunday morning that she had some Monarch butterflies that had just come out of their chrysalis, and she would like to do the children’s message. I was not sure what was going to happen. Well, that morning Ms. Vera taught a little girl and the congregation about the wonders of the Monarch butterfly as part of God’s creation. Each year a new generation of butterflies migrate from as far north as Canada and even here in East TN all the way to the Mexican Forest called “El Rosario.” There can be up to a half billion of those butterflies in the trees of this reserve during the winter months. Ms. Vera told us that they will migrate back to the exact location that they flew from and do this from generation to generation.
This intrigued me as now we have four Monarch butterflies that took off from the trees on the church property at 513 Hattie Ave. I wonder how God does that and how they can travel over 4,000 miles round trip to come back to the evergreens next to our sanctuary. How remarkable that a simple and yet beautiful butterfly knows their way home and the height of God’s creation (us) are so prone to wander.The old hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” says: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.
Why do we as God’s creation think we know better than the creator God? We should yearn for a time to come home to God. To know that God is found still in His creation, but also in His church where his followers should gather for warmth like the Monarch butterflies do.
Lord call us home to you and may we fly home to you, to your church, and into your arms.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. ~ Psalm 119:10
