Spring time is in the air! Do you have spring fever and want to go outdoors but feel trapped inside? Well, let’s examine what a caterpillar feels like being trapped in a cocoon. We need to go back to when we learned about the butterfly in elementary or in middle school. If you don’t remember the lesson, here it is again.

The butterfly was not always a winged creature. It goes through its own life cycle that consists of 4 stages. The first stage is the form of an egg. The next stage is the larvae or caterpillar. It spends all it’s time in search of food and eats, eats, and eats some more. Caterpillars mature through a series of stages called instars. During this stage of its life, it molts or in other words, loses its old skin many time as it grows.

The 3^rd stage is called the Pupa, or what I like to call the resting stage in a cocoon. When the caterpillar is fully grown, it makes a button of silk which it uses to fasten its body to a leaf or a twig. Then the caterpillar’s skin comes off for the final time. It wraps itself in silk and forms a cocoon around it.

The 4^th and final stage of this creature is the adult stage or as we all know as the Butterfly.  After it emerges from its pupal stage, a butterfly cannot fly until the wings are unfolded. A newly-emerged butterfly needs to spend some time inflating its wings with blood and letting them dry, during which time it is extremely vulnerable to predators. Some butterflies’ wings may take up to three hours to dry while others take about one hour. Then this beautiful butterfly creature is ready to fly and explore the world from a different perspective.

Let’s really focus on the 3^rd stage when the caterpillar is in a cocoon. Stick with me and you will learn something important to your life. The cocoon is made for the protection of the caterpillar. When looking at a cocoon, it is very ugly on the outside.  It has been said that the most beautiful butterflies have actually emerged from the ugliest cocoons. The cocoon provides a hard protective coating that is oftentimes camouflaged so that predators cannot see them. They stay there an entire season (usually during wintertime). Inside, the old body parts of the caterpillar are undergoing a remarkable transformation, called ‘metamorphosis’.

The dictionary definition of Metamorphosis is a change of physical form, structure, or substance especially by supernatural means and a striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances. Anything that undergoes a metamorphosis is usually accompanied by a change of habitat or behavior. Science cannot explain what happens within metamorphosis except to say that it is a supernatural process that takes place.

When it’s time for the butterfly to emerge and come out of the cocoon, it must struggle and fight its way out. During this process it will become completely exhausted and stop struggling for long periods of time. Then it would begin to fight again until it finally is free of the cocoon that has trapped it inside during this season of its life.

Now if you ever have seen this process, you may be tempted to help this process by tearing open the cocoon – but that’s the worst thing you could do.  You may think you are helping that beautiful butterfly, but you would really be killing it.  Instead of setting the butterfly free, the reality is that it will never flew away and, eventually will die. The struggle that it has to go through makes it strong and enables it to fly. Interesting that God even made Butterflies to have adversity to become what God intended them to be.

A caterpillar went into the cocoon, but something entirely different came out. What was once an unattractive creepy crawly thing is something beautiful beyond understanding. The butterfly and caterpillar is the same living creature, yet different. It has gone through a metamorphosis or what we call transformation for human life.

Some of you right now may feel that you are trapped inside a cocoon.  But don’t stress.  That’s the perfect place you need to be during this season of your life.  Understand that this is God’s protective environment for you to go through the process to become something beautiful and reach the heights God wants to take you! Look at this time of being transformed, not trapped!

(Psalm 18:30 NLT) As for God, his way is perfect. All the LORD’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

Here are some things you need to do while you are in your cocoon being transformed:

1. Enjoy the season. Enjoy the protection. Enjoy the rest.
2. DO NOT RUSH things. This process must take time to truly change you.
3. Stay put. When others try to take you away before it’s time thinking they are helping you, understand that they are really hurting you more than helping. Don’t let them take you out!
4. The fight and struggle you go through is to build your character and for you to fully develop into that man or woman God has called you to be. Because when that time comes for you to break out of your cocoon, God will take you to higher levels that you can’t even imagine.

A caterpillar is physically limited to the ground. However, a butterfly sees a whole new world from a different perspective and has the freedom to go places it only dreamed of as a caterpillar.

2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Once you become that butterfly, God is going to take you to new heights and will enlarge your territory.

1 Chronicles 4:10   -  Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory!

Remember that if you are feeling trapped in a cocoon – Endure and persevere one day at a time, before you know it, you will become that beautiful creature like the butterfly that God has always intended you to be!

A sabbatical in the dictionary is defined as any extended period of leave from one’s customary work, esp. for rest, to acquire new skills or training. In my opinion, a sabbatical is to take a time for you and Jesus and train yourself to become a greater warrior for the Kingdom of God. Everyone can take a sabbatical for a year but also everyone takes a sabbatical for different reasons. For example, the sacrifice of giving up dating for a year shows that you’re letting go of your own life and letting God work in your life. In the end of a sabbatical you will be a totally a different. In my own personal experience of doing a sabbatical for a year and now finishing, I can say I am completely a different person than who I was last year. I am not perfect, but I am on my way to becoming a better warrior princess of the most HIGH KING.

 A sabbatical in my own personal life meant to not only to focus on God, but to learn more about how I act, how my moods are, what I need to work on, and what inner baggage God needed to remove in my life. It was a transforming experience to take that time and learn to hear Gods voice.

In the beginning of my sabbatical I was just going to do it for no dating in my life. Within that month, three guys started talking to me and I had to remove myself because I knew I couldn’t get involved with a guy. Guys were flies sticking on to me and wanting to get my attention. When you try to follow Christ closer you will get attacked harder. I learned that none of those guys were for me because I was dedicated to my God. It was not God’s timing so I knew it was not the best of the best for me.

The next couple of months, God revealed inner baggage that I carried still upset me. Rejection in my life from my physical father was something God had to deal with me from the inside out. I couldn’t let go because I never forgave my physical father for never being in my life. Not letting go of the past will put you in chains. This will stop you from going forward into your future. Rejection, loneliness, abandonment and isolation stirs up our lives.  In the course of time it had a domino effect that affected all my relationships, which even led to co-dependency in friendships.

The Lord taught me to let go, forgive and forget the past. After doing this, I am now able to go forward into the next season. I also fasted for 4 days, which taught me so much. I was walking home one day from church and I just thought about all the great things God has done in the past rocky 4 years of my life. I felt an overwhelming peace come over me while I was worshiping God. It was something I will never forget and will always treasure.

 A revelation in my life!!

 I have observed Christian couples to see the kind of man I want and also who I want to be as a woman of God. Every day, I am learning something new about myself. I know that I am not perfect but I am trying everyday to be like Ruth and prepare myself for the Boaz that will come into my life one day.

 How did I handle the struggles?

 I did struggle with wanting a relationship within this sabbatical period. I would write a letter to my future husband or to God. I didn’t dwell on the thoughts of wanting a relationship. I would capture my thoughts and start think about something else. I reminded myself that God has the best for me. When I go to weddings or special occasions and see happy couples, I would say to myself,  “God has that for me one day but not now.”

Menstrual days!! On the days that I would have my period are honestly the hardest days of wanting a relationship. Every time I was on my period I would isolate myself from guys because I knew I would be thinking about wanting a relationship. I would hang out only with girls. I would do anything I have to do so that I would not fall into the temptation to think about having a relationship to distract my walk with God. I honestly believe that whatever a girl has to do to stay focus on God – then DO IT! Believe me, it is not easy but I know in HIS TIMING, it will be worth it all.   Ecclesiastes 3:11 -  He has made everything beautiful in its time.

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