BLUE MORPHO BUTTERFLIES SIGHTED

                                  BLUE MORPHO BUTTERFLIES SIGHTED
                                                                 T. Wieland Allen
      The most amazing thing about appearances from the heavenly dimension is that they happen all the time but people are blind to them, or maybe they see them but do not relate them to reality.  I was blind to them for many years, choosing instead to only believe what was material to this world, what I could touch, feel, smell, hear or taste.  Even when things appeared to be from another dimension, I chose not to be "spiritual" or "mystical" as is the label attached to people who are aware of heavenly occurrences.  When I began to appreciate the messages of hope and faith that come from the heavenly world, I found that their appearances became more and more frequent and much more apparent to me.

      Such an occasion happened to me recently at the home of my daughter and her family.  Their home is a loving home with an appreciation of the uniqueness of every member of their family, my daughter, her husband and their daughter Edan.  They are a family of many talents and varied interests.  It is in such a setting that messages of hope and faith come easily because of the lack of conflict, drama and chaos.  Heavenly visitations frequent the homes where an atmosphere of heaven is already present, homes where love, peace, joy, kindness, goodness and patience are already well established.
       I must lay the background for the message of hope, assurance and faith that came to me on a recent visit to such an earthly atmosphere, the home of my daughter and her family.  The background involves the life of my husband Steve who fought a valiant battle with a rare form of cancer and lost the final battle, which broke the hearts of every member of our family.  After his death, our grand daughter Edan, at six years old, told me that she used to be afraid to die, but now she's not afraid to die because she will get to hug Pop-Pop again.  The reality of the heavenly dimension around us is very real to children.  Often as adults we lose that childlike faith.  I think that Edan's secure belief in the heavenly dimension is part of what allowed it to be manifested to me so easily in their home.
      Three years ago, during the last months when Steve was fighting an especially difficult battle, we had the occasion to be at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for his treatment.  Things were beginning to look pretty grim, though we were riding on a high wave of faith for his eventual healing.  I was perusing a gift shop while he was having tests and my eyes were drawn to a journaling book whose title was "Just When the Caterpillar Thought the World Was Over, It Became A Butterfly."   I knew that Steve was entertaining a little hint of defeat so I bought the book for him to journal the rest of his adventure toward becoming a butterfly, free of the cancer.  He loved the image of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

      When we arrived home from Houston, I emailed a friend about the book and she immediately sent a cartoon via email to us of a blue morpho butterfly attempting to fly up a flight of steps with a large stone trailing underneath it which was attached to the butterfly by a thin cord.  That picture was the exact way that Steve felt at the time.   He felt like he was dragging a boulder up a hill, knowing that at the top he would be able to release the boulder and become as free as a butterfly.  The blue morpho butterfly became a message of hope and faith for my friend and me.  We began to send blue morpho butterflies to each other in jewelry, in pictures, in anything, just to remind each other not to give up.  Steve bought into the blue morpho butterfly obsession, too, appreciating every time we shared the butterflies.

      Even after Steve went to heaven, blue morpho butterflies have continued to be a mutual obsession between my friend and me.  Any time we see a trinket that resembles the blue butterfly, we send it to the other person.  I never knew anything about blue morpho butterflies until Steve's illness, but now I see them everywhere.
     That is the background for my story.  Currently it is now Christmas time and I spent four days of the Christmas holiday with my daughter, her husband and my grand daugher Edan who had recently recovered from strep throat.  Edan had never been sick enough to have an antibiotic in her nine years of life, but there is always a first time for everything. With strep throat, antibiotics are standard cures.  She took her medicine like a trooper and had a ten day supply, which the doctors said she must complete to effect the cure.  I arrived on the fifth day of her taking the medicine and she was tolerating it nicely, also having a big bottle of a probiotic drink to ensure the replacement of good intestinal bacterial in her digestive tract.  She was full of Christmas excitement and holiday cheer. 
     On the seventh day of antibiotic intake a small indistinct rash appeared on one of her cheeks.   By the next morning, which was Christmas Eve, the rash had traveled onto her entire body, even causing a fever of two degrees.  Edan began to be lackadaisical, not the excited and energetic nine year old who was so active when I arrived to visit.  She laid on the couch off and on, slept a little, and only ate a little bit of food.  There was still a little bit of excitement about Christmas but not to the degree as on previous days.  Her face began to swell and turn bright red.  Even her ears were swollen and bright red.  The rash was also on her scalp and all the way down, covering her toes.  After a call to the doctor, which was accompanied by email cell phone photos of the bright red rash on all of her body, it was determined that the antibiotic should be stopped immediately and Benadryl should be given to relieve the itching and discomfort caused by an allergic reaction to the antibiotic which was given to cure the strep throat.  Her temperature had climbed to 103 plus, and so the doctor said to also give her Tylenol to lower the temperature.

      She had a restless night but on Christmas Day she felt like opening a few gifts.  Then she ran out of the energy necessary to complete the task of opening gifts and went to bed to rest.  We had been warned that we should watch for labored breathing or her throat swelling closed and a temperature of 106 degrees because those symptoms would be a sign of anaphylactic shock, which can lead to instant death.  She slept peacefully for several hours and I volunteered to sit with her because her parents had already had ten days of her sickness in recovering from strep throat after having been misdiagnosed originally by a nurse who did not administer the test properly.  They had already spent emotions and time caring for a sick little girl with strep throat for ten days and, here again, she required watching for worse symptoms of the allergic reaction to the antibiotic which was given to cure the strep bacteria.  I volunteered to sit with her while she slept.
     Grandmoms just know how to pray because of our years of practice while raising our own children.  I sat on a chair beside Edan's bed and watched for a change in her breathing or a sudden rise in temperature.  I prayed and prayed for the disappearance of the rash and prayed that the temperature would not climb any higher.  It kept coming into my mind that patience would produce a good result. 
     As I felt her chest for any sign of labored breathing and watched her throat for any sign of difficulty swallowing, my eyes suddenly landed on her sheets, which I had not noticed.  There was a blue butterfly imprinted amidst the flowers on her sheets.  How did I miss it previously?  I didn't need the faith previously when I saw her in bed, but I needed the hope and faith now that she was so sick, so red and so swollen. 
     I continued to pray for her but with a new sense of hope for a complete healing without the possibility of the serious shock to her little body.  As she slept, I became chilled and reached for one of the four quilts on her bed.  She was wrapped in three of them and I grabbed the only one that was loose and available.  It was a quilt made for her by her mom's best friend, a brightly multicolored quilt.  I threw it around my legs and noticed something that I had never noticed before about the quilt, although I had seen it many times.  The lining to the quilt was imprinted with hundreds and hundreds of dark blue butterflies and the edging around the lining was imprinted with larger blue morpho butterflies.  They were everywhere. 

     I got the message loud and clear that she was going to be fine.  How could I not believe that God and her Pop-Pop had not provided the butterflies as visual images to me that our precious grandchild was going to be fine as soon as the antibiotic was out of her system.  It was as though the butterflies had been spotlighted to me so that I would not miss them.  All fear left me and I was at peace.
    That evening, Christmas night, I took a notebook out of my luggage, a notebook  that my daughter, Edan's mother, had given to me several years ago in which to write the miracles and revelations from God.  As I got it out of my luggage, I saw what I had missed seeing in the past.  Among the many kinds of butterflies on the cover of the notebook were five blue morpho ones.  I had not noticed them in the past.  Where had those blue morpho butterflies been all of my life? I never knew they existed and  I had never seen pictures of them until the last few years.
     The miracle continued.  When I arrived home from the trip I picked up the large journaling book from the gift shop at M. D. Anderson that I had given to Steve that had as its title, "Just When The Caterpillar Thought the World Was Over, He Became a Butterfly."  I wanted to move it closer to my bed.  A clipping fell out of the book.  It was a cartoon that showed a butterfly emerging from its cocoon and it is saying, "I'm free."  The cartoon had been sent to me over three years ago by..... guess who?  The friend of my daughter who was the maker of Edan's quilt.
     I know we are all connected in a supernatural way and the blue morpho butterflies are the earthly and visual representations of the heavenly visitors who come to help us in our time of need.   There is something really thrilling and encouraging about that!  When I looked up the word "morpho" I saw that it means to change forms.  Yes, now I understand.  Angels can change forms and become strangers in our midst, coming to bring us faith, hope and healing.
    Thanks to God and Pop-Pop for giving me faith and hope for the complete healing of Edan.  I don't know how many angels it took, but they were adequate for the task. When I think about the migration south of the millions of Monarch butterflies, I can envision the angels that were sent to do the job.  In fact, the butterflies on the lining of Edan's quilt are probably only a small representation of the angels sent to do the task of healing her without the dreaded shock. 
    Until three years ago, I never knew anything about blue morpho butterflies.  Now I see them everywhere, in reality and trusting in their being present as angels in the heavenly spiritual dimension around us to do God's great works in our lives.
    We must pray for eyes to see and ears to hear the wonders of God's miracles.  They are everywhere.  He even sends them to give us faith and hope.  We must have eyes of faith to recognize every one of the zillions of them.