Butterflies
I have been smiling a whole lot more lately. I think it has to do with the butterflies.

You see, B and I went to a retreat called Cursillo, about a month ago. It was a great spiritual retreat focused on food, fellowship, scripture, and God and His Grace in our lives. In all, I think B and I walked away from the whole weekend with a great sense of peace and understanding about God, that we may not have had before.
We felt great.
The butterfly was a symbol of this weekend. Each day of the retreat, we got all kinds of little gifts left on our pillow. The first night, we got a caterpillar magnet. The second night, a chrysalis, the third night, a butterfly. It was meant to represent how we were changing spiritually throughout the weekend.
At first, I considered it quite a cheesy little mascot, but once I let go, and gave in to the cheese, I could really soak in symbolism of it all...or maybe it was just the lack of sleep throughout the whole weekend. Who knows.
Anyway, the day after the retreat, it was back to work and back to the grind of school. Funny though, the first thing I noticed, were the butterflies. Not real butterflies mind you, not yet anyway, but there were butterfly clips carefully pulling back locks of first grade hair, there were butterflies colorfully embroidered onto jeans, butterflies sequined onto tops, sweaters, shoes... It was as if each of my 12 girls in my class all called each other on the phone to coordinate the wearing of the butterflies. They were everywhere.
Every once in a while, I would look at one of the butterflies adorning the fashionistas in my class and smirk a little to myself. Like God was talking directly to me...reminding me with little hints.
And then, the news came. The first grade team leader came in with some bad news. "We have a huge problem. You see," she explained, "we usually study caterpillars in the Spring, but for some reason, they came early this year. We are going to have to teach butterflies now...today!"

I tried to look as serious as I could. I understood that to her, this was a huge huge problem. To me this was as if at that very moment, God had knocked me to the ground and said, "See, You have come a long way... spread your wings!"
Finally, by the end of the conversation with this woman, I was all smiles from ear to ear. Needless to say, she couldn't figure out why.

Since that day, the first graders and I have watched the caterpillars eat and eat and eat. We have watched them form the chrysalis and we have watched them emerge so delicately with their wet floppy wings, ready to begin the new phase of their life. We watched them anxiously go into that beautiful blue sky and we laughed and rejoiced.
We even warned them of those mean birds as we let them free.

My job as a teacher, my job as a friend, my job as a daughter and wife is to watch, guide, and help those whom I love to grow, change, and spread their spiritual wings and I hope they will do the same for me. Till then, I just look for butterflies and smile.