“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Psalm 130:5-6
I remember as a child, during the sweltering summers of the Florida heat, when an occasional mosquito would find it’s way in my bedroom. Without air-conditioning the windows were extended as open and wide as they could stretch in the event a slight breeze may catch the sill. The screens did their job for the most part, although I found it strikingly remarkable how the mosquitoes could find the four or five BB holes left there from . . . well, what else is a boy to do when he’s sent to his room and he has a BB gun? The nights were hot and very sticky with that humid Florida air. I begged most nights for that breeze! With no hope of relief I fought hard to drift to sleep. But the mosquito knew exactly where to find me! Worse, he knew exactly where my ear was in which to announce his presence. This sound, this buzzing sound was and quite frankly, still is, the worst noise in the world! My only hope, my only escape was to retreat. Despite the heat, the sealed, fortress-like fabric of my sheets were the perfect cover. I pulled and tucked myself in and under the covers until I could barely breathe. Inside the chrysalis.
Time has no measure inside the chrysalis. Jonah spent three days in his, the Hebrews spent forty years in theirs. Life is full of cocoons, both big and small. But life inside the chrysalis is never easy. It appears lonely, and may include a sense of abandonment. After all, a caterpillar never shares his cocoon with another. The journey inside the chrysalis is the second phase of a threefold process God uses in soul-making. The life inside the chrysalis transforms!
The author, Sue Kidd says, “A creature can separate from an old way of existence, enter a time of metamorphosis, and emerge to a new level of being.” Transformation happens!
Lord Jesus, it is dark, it feels lonely, and it’s hard to see what is happening inside the chrysalis of my life right now! I ask you to work the clay, whittle away from my heart that which does not look like the man You called me to be. And while I wait and put my hope in your word may I be attentive to the call, sweet whisper of your Spirit within.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” II Corinthians 5:17