These are hard times. No matter your age, race, religion, or politics, each day’s events sometimes on all levels are beyond challenging. Simply getting out of bed or being able to stay warm or even being able to get to work on a  non-slippery road cannot be taken for granted, let alone being able to process the alarming headlines, each day more unpredictable than the day before. So when I opened my eyes this morning and mindlessly looked at the small silver butterfly charm on my bracelet, perhaps what happened next was our Abba sending me some soothing love.

I love to think of all the subliminal ways our Creator may sprinkle His Presence around us and provide us the “Ah ha” moments to notice them. This was one of those times.

As some of you know, I love butterflies. They are intricately beautiful and suggest to me a connection to that spiritual realm we cannot see but that we know surrounds us.  They are like messengers, showing up at times and places that often are so synchronistically significant to what is transpiring at the moment. So many stories. . .

This morning, like any other morning, I was wearing a bracelet that has a small silver butterfly charm but it struck me in a new way. Although I had seen it countless times, today the butterfly’s body with the top of the wings swept upward on each side of it was suggestive to me of Yeshua on the cross.

As I looked at that butterfly charm with new eyes, the message gained depth. I thought of the detailed beauty of the many colors and designs of the wings of the many varieties of real butterflies. I delighted in my mind recalling the detail of the artistry of their wings, their systems and role in pollination and procreation of life in nature. I thought about the true metamorphosis they undergo from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to adult butterfly, the very design of their complete transformation from an egg to a gorgeous, mystical creature so suggestive of the transformation we as humans strive to accomplish.

As the Yeshua on the cross/butterfly image continued to fill my brain, other examples of His sacrificial cross subtly around us sprang to mind. I remembered a trip out west where a field of hundreds of phone poles from our perspective brought to mind crosses and thoughts of our Messiah and the many who believe in Him. I recalled seeing the movie “ Wonder Woman” where in a dramatic closing scene Wonder Woman descends from the sky with her arms uplifted and outstretched to the sides as she is sacrificing herself to save another. Somehow the butterfly depicted on the charm felt as a reminder of this ultimate act of Yeshua’s self sacrifice as if God was ministering to me in that moment, reminding me that He is with us no matter what, sacrificially loving us then and always.

I have had butterflies lead me where I needed to go when I was lost, be flying alongside me when in danger kayaking on the ocean and far from land, when in deep prayer. I have admired the perfect artistry of their wings, loved the feeling of their touch when one miraculously has alighted on my finger.  I’ve thought about their transformation. I’ve felt their spiritual bridge to the unseen realm. How magnificent to be reminded of all of these feelings of His Presence by a glimpse at that tiny metal charm, just when I needed the reminder.

I try to start all of my days with Him through Bible study and prayer. This morning He reached out to me first, for He knows our hearts. He knows when we are hurting and needing Him the most, when we need His reassurance that He’s got this.

I am grateful that I had the eyes to see His ministering to me this morning. After all, I was just glancing at the same bracelet I wear every day, yet He allowed me to see Him in it. That insight reminded me of how much He wants to be in relationship with each of us. Can you even begin to process that reality??

Yet that is the truth. He loves us that much. All we have to do is not take that love for granted, but rather, do our part to show Him how much we love Him. We do that by prioritizing our relationship with God/Yeshua in our thoughts and actions, and by pouring our love onto others. We become able to pour out on others the overflowing love He is pouring onto us – all the time.

I hope this week brings you new ways to feel our Abba’s incredible nearness through Yeshua as we become more attuned to the intimacy of this love relationship. He’s all around us, with us, just waiting to be noticed, even in the mundane and small things and places we experience every day, even using a simple charm on a bracelet to get our attention. With that reality, no “bad news” can disquiet our shalom.

Shabbat shalom.

Diane