From ewww to ahhh

Butterflies are insects.
Insects. Ewwww.Just the thought makes me shiver, and I begin senselessly swatting and flailing my arms to try to get an imaginary creepy, crawly, flying thing off me...with just a thought.

But butterflies are different. They go through a complete transformation, from ewww to ahhh, emerging beautiful and nothing like their former selves.

A roach, that's probably what I was, or some insect that is completely disgusting. I did plenty in my life that was hurtful to others and to myself. So, I just hated myself which seemed well deserved and, in theory, motivation to never screw up again. Didn't work. And, didn't help my relationships with other people either. I unconsciously transferred my high expectations and judgements of myself onto others as well. Do you see the self-perpetuating spiral downward?

Jesus Christ came into my life and transformed it. It wasn't as quick as the butterfly's transformation, but a transformation nevertheless. It turns out that He was the only one that could reconcile all those things I had done and said.

The hardest part was letting someone love me, letting someone forgive me, someone that knew EVERYTHING. But, that is what I needed...grace...complete forgiveness. Otherwise, I was never going to emerge from my self-loathing, self-prepetuating cocoon.

When I see a butterfly, I will remember that Christ freed me from my cocoon. He reconciled my past, present, and future.

'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.' 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

I pray that my new self continues to grow in God's likeness, becoming less and less like my former self.

Although I often still see a creepy crawly ugly thing (it's a process, you know), God doesn't. He sees beauty, the butterfly in me. He turned my ewwww to ahhhh.