You may wonder why I chose to be JB Butterfly instead of maybe…Queen Judy…or The Great Author…or Princess Beautiful. Well, I will explain. None of the other titles feels like a comfortable fit. You see, I was born a worm. Oh sure, I was a beautiful bouncing baby girl – a treasure to my parents after having two boys. To them I was not a worm, but a beautiful butterfly. But to God I was a worm. We all are born as worms with a sin nature – a nature that desires to crawl in the dirt, or cling to a branch and eat until we are satisfied. We are interested in nothing more than filling the emptiness within – in satisfying our appetite, even though that means destroying the branch we are clinging to.
Anyway, I was born to two believing Christian parents. I was taken to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I was taught the Bible in Sunday school, Bible school, and in the home. I was taught mostly what a “good Christian” should do – how to behave, how to feel, and how to think. And as a good worm, I did exactly what was expected of me as I munched on the branches of pride, acceptance, and good works.
But God had other plans for me. Life happened…and I spent many years in the safety of a cocoon of my own making, refusing to emerge out of the fear of life and the unknown. It was during this time that God continued working on me…to change me…to create something beautiful of that worm that had crawled into that cocoon.
Now God is wooing me out of that cocoon into His beautiful world. I am emerging into what feels like a dangerous world with intense struggling and with fears on every side. But I emerge as a beautiful butterfly created by a loving God. I have no other purpose than to glorify the God of creation – to show how His hand formed me from a worm to a butterfly. And so I write…to send hope to all those within the darkness of their cocoons, who are crying out, “Why, God, why is this happening to me?” – to give them encouragement that God is indeed forming them into a butterfly if they allow Him to work.
ONCE UPON A TIME 