It all started one winter’s day in December. I had made a massive laundry change of all the beds in the house and late in the evening realised I had forgotten to make all the beds up again. So tired and ready for bed, we went upstairs to make the beds. To my surprise there was a huge Red Admiral butterfly in my bedroom stretching its wings on my royal blue curtains.
The butterfly sat as still as could be as I snapped a couple of photographs, and then searching all over the room, looking to see if there was a chrysalis it had squeezed out from. I didn’t find one.
It was easy to catch the butterfly and hold it in our hands. My instinct was to put it outside through the bedroom window, but the poor butterfly just sat on the window ledge trying to get back inside the warm bedroom because it was freezing winter weather outside. I felt so cruel and decided to let it back into the house again.
Later in the year the same thing happened again. We had gone to my daughter’s bedroom and there was another Red Admiral flying around her large round red paper light shade. This time we just left it and didn’t try to put it outside.
We began to notice the different white eyespots or white spots as they’re known in the butterfly world, positioned on the wings and unique to every butterfly. We made the connection that each time a Red Admiral butterfly appeared in my home, I was invited to minister in Europe.
Over a year ago, just before Christmas, I visited an outdoor Garden Centre when an abnormally large Red Admiral butterfly appeared above my head. My friend & I stood and engaged with the butterfly with eyes closed and hands open. We welcomed it honouring God’s creation and thanking Jesus for it. Shoppers were coming around wondering what we were looking at!
The butterfly flew right by my hands and didn’t land. It would fly right by my friend’s head and then come back down closer to our hands. This went on for about 10 minutes. We took a photograph and looked up which region it came from. Surprised elation came on us as we read the butterfly came from Wellington NZ and had appeared in South Wales in the middle of winter.
At this point we were starting to wonder what was going on.
A little while previously I was back in Scotland in a place called Danard. It is a family’s place where a mound of stones are placed and where St Columba would inaugerate kings. This was also the place where the King of Cumbria got saved. There are footprints in the rock and people come from miles around to be there. As we were coming down the rocky grassy hill a white Cabbage Butterfly circled around my head and landed on me. There were five people and the butterfly never went near anybody but me. It is creation groaning! I love creation.
One day I was up in the green house and a Red Admiral flew in and landed on me and within a week, I had an invitation to Germany!
The Lord speaks to us in many different ways, as William Cowper put it:
“God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.”
William Cowper
“For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children are…”
Romans 8:19-22
That’s you and me!
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Big blessings
Love Janie x