Inside the Chrysalis

Most of us learned about butterfly metamorphosis in grade school. But what actually happens inside the chrysalis is far more radical than we were told.

In 1669, Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam dissected a caterpillar and made a stunning discovery: hidden inside the larva were the folded beginnings of wings. Centuries later, scientists confirmed what he had glimpsed. During metamorphosis, the caterpillar doesn't simply sprout wings. Enzymes dissolve nearly every cell in its body into a formless biological soup. The creature it was ceases to exist. But embedded in that dissolution are tiny clusters of cells called imaginal discs — structures present in the caterpillar all along, lying dormant, waiting. These cells survive the breakdown, multiply, and use the dissolved tissue as raw material to construct something entirely new: compound eyes, a coiled proboscis, wings engineered for flight.

The old body had to be completely undone before the new creature could emerge.

Paul wrote, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The work of the Almighty is not renovation — patching the old life with a few improvements. It is dissolution and re-creation.

If you feel like everything you once were is falling apart, take heart. God may be doing His deepest work right now. The seeds of who you are becoming were placed in you long ago, and everything you have walked through is becoming fuel for your wings.