{"id":1099,"date":"2012-09-13T20:54:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T20:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/?p=1099"},"modified":"2012-09-13T20:55:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-13T20:55:08","slug":"butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/?p=1099","title":{"rendered":"Butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been thinking a lot about change. \u00a0But not just change like changing your clothes or your hair color. \u00a0I have been thinking about transformation. \u00a0A change so significant that what once was is no more. Like a chemical change. \u00a0Being changed from the very depth of my being.<\/p>\n

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. What does one have to do with the other? How different they are! They look different, they function differently. \u00a0One day a round, wingless, multi-legged, crawling,\u00a0worm-like creature. \u00a0And then the transformation into a sleeker, winged, delicate, colorful, flying,\u00a0flower-like creature.<\/p>\n

As I understand it, I am undergoing a transformation. \u00a0I will change from a person who puts self first, who thinks she knows more than anyone else, who hurts others, into a person who puts others first, who is humble, who brings healing. \u00a0A person who resembles God.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it seems impossible. \u00a0How can I be transformed into a person like Jesus?<\/p>\n

But there it is. We know caterpillars do transform into butterflies. \u00a0They go into their cocoons and undergo the most amazing transformation imaginable.<\/p>\n

Reflect on this. \u00a0That is some significant body changing going on. \u00a0That’s not a makeover, that is total body reconstruction. \u00a0Almost like dying and being reborn as something totally different.<\/p>\n

I wonder, does it hurt?<\/p>\n

I personally find the transformation process to be a painful experience.\u00a0The self, the flesh, the old nature dying and me being reborn as someone entirely different, someone like Jesus.\u00a0Self dies hard. \u00a0In my mind self dying looks like that scene at the end of the second terminator movie, in which the second terminator is in the molten steel, and he thrashes around fighting it to the last.<\/p>\n

I thrash around too.<\/p>\n

So I look at the butterfly and wonder, does it hurt?<\/p>\n

I think it must.<\/p>\n

But, wow, was it worth it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been thinking a lot about change. \u00a0But not just change like changing your clothes or your hair color. \u00a0I have been thinking about transformation. \u00a0A change so significant that what once was is no more. Like a chemical change. \u00a0Being changed from the very depth of my being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-hJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}