BRIGHT SUNNY DAY - Guest Blog by Denise Pridgen

Belly down, feet up in the Florida sunshine. Being VERY still...

Soon enough it HAPPENED.

Tiny, tiny little legs tickle my hands.  My tendency was to laugh but I knew that would be detrimental to my mission...to find and become "friends" with as many different colors of butterfly as possible, in order to share their world.

I had a strategy--my strategy was a bit faulty at first --I would just burst out into the yard and barrel over to the flower beds and plop down.

I soon learned that was a very ineffective way to get what I wanted. My goal was for the colorful creatures to not see me as a threat.

My method was disappointing at first. Slowly, very slowly, I realized that being hurried and quick worked well with doing some things like catching grasshoppers. However, it was not effective at all with butterflies.

Another sad lesson learned very early was that if I touched their wings, it would permanently disable them & sadly they would die.

So, watching carefully was imperative to the mission. It was such a treat to study them--I got pretty good at guessing which ones would be first to settle back down to their fluttering habits. The little grey on grey ones, the tiny buttercup oranges, powder blues or even bigger neon yellows (these I called grass flutterers). Most of them were too skittish to actually risk landing on this leggy intruder into their world. But those neons--almost every time--if I was patient enough, one or two would land on the back of my hand or arm and explore a bit, and tickle.

THEN I FOUND THE MAGIC:

I was outside in one of my favorite play dresses; a multi-flowered on a red background print. I was intently studying the petals of a humongous (to me) hydrangea bloom, trying to figure out why the flowers were different shades on the same bush, when suddenly...

IT HAPPENED- I know to this day the only way that I did not jump up and down and run around in circles was because I had trained for this moment a LOT!!!

The flower beds were often visited by beautiful yellow and black swallowtails and rarer shiny, blue swallowtails. HUGE! As big as my hand or bigger. Burnt orange and boldly defined black Monarchs were fairly common as well. They mostly stayed in the flower beds & hardly ever visited my grassy spot.

But, just like that: as I was doing life, minding my own business, a huge yellow swallowtail landed right on my dress- RIGHT ON THE FRONT OF MY DRESS!!!
 
I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ANY HAPPIER IF YOU HAD OFFERED TO TAKE ME TO THE CIRCUS!

 My life had already been very tumultuous up to this point. Burned by my Mother; my brother and I had been placed in foster care before I had any memory recall. The outdoors was my happy place.

Fast-forward 50+ years and a lot of life later. As I was listening to the world quietly wake up this morning, speaking with my Heavenly Father after another day in which our world has been BOMBARDED with THE NOISE of hatred, injustice,  poverty of spirit, and mourning, He reminded me of those days so long ago and the knowledge and time it took to gain the personal satisfaction of knowing how to make the "MAGIC" happen.

It may seem oversimplified to compare butterflies to the human race. However, God often uses His simple beauty to teach a profound lesson.

God created differences for our benefit; birds, flowers, butterflies – and PEOPLE!!!

One day every tongue, tribe, nation & people will worship in heaven together (Rev 7:9)

Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for every tongue, tribe & people & nation. (Rev. 5:9).

Perhaps one purpose of Earth is to be the training ground where we learn what scatters & what settles; to find the environment that does no harm; that which soothes & makes us smile. This world is badly damaged, and it needs healing only our Heavenly Father can provide.

In the early days of learning about butterfly surroundings and what harmed them and what calmed them, I made a fair amount of mistakes. I am still learning, and I still make mistakes.

I have a beautiful friend of nearly 40 years. We are from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. She is city. I am country. She is mostly calm. I’m excitable through thick and thin (yes, I’m thick- she’s thin).

Still we have made it work. Through patience, patience & did I mention patience. And PRAYER! LOTS of PRAYER for each other. She is easy to love. Me? Well, that is where the prayer comes in.

As humans we can never fully know another person’s past, or pain. We can, however, ask God to show us beauty in each other and ways to communicate better.

We can be more united than divided in those areas. Join me, won’t you in praying that for ourselves? I pray we all learn to live more gathered than scattered.