wooly worms

This past weekend some friends and I went camping near Linville Falls, North Carolina.  It was a beautiful weekend.  The leaves in the mountains have already turned beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow.  The temperature was warm during the day, but chilly at night...perfect for huddling around a bonfire.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Wooly Worm Festival in Banner Elk.  None of us was sure exactly what a wooly worm was until we found one crawling around our campsite.  It is not the most beautiful worm I have ever seen, but it was cute.

As I was holding the worm, whom we named either Wanda or Wilfred or William Wallace, I found myself saying to it, "It would be so sad if you stayed a worm forever."  As I said this my heart caught up in my throat and I realized I was talking to myself.  I have been feeling particularly wormy lately.  Wanting to be different but finding myself the same.  Doing the same things I always do.  Thinking the same thoughts I always think.

Last night my roommate and a friend and I were sitting around my table and somehow the wooly worms came up in conversation.  I told them about how sad I felt at the thought that a wooly worm might stay a worm for life.  All of a sudden I felt desperate to know if the worm was actually a caterpillar.  "I don't want to be a worm.  I want to fly," I shouted.  I couldn't look it up fast enough.

 I burst into tears as I discovered that indeed, the Wooly Worm is actually a caterpillar.  It is the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth.  Hope!  Sweet hope flooded over me.  Knowing that the worm was going to become something else one day was encouragement to my overwhelmed heart.

The next day I was listening to Beth Moore and something she said made me realize that I still did not have it quite right, though.  The thing is, I am not a worm at all.  The Lord has already made me a new creation.    I don't have to live like worm anymore.  "Become what you already are," a friend said to me recently.

My favorite part is that Isabella, the name of the moth, means "God's promise" or "My God is a oath."

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23 

You make me new, you are making me new. ~ Beautiful Things by Gungor