Butterfly Chronicles: Volume 9 - Silver Blue Butterfly Tree

13 Weeks, 4 days

“For he is the living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves;
he performs signs and wonders
in the heavens and on the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
from the power of the lions.”

Son, your Aunt showed me a picture today of a Christmas tree she made for you. Covered with blue and silver butterflies, it sits where a headstone will eventually rest marking your box. Seeing that photo, I needed to be there where I haven’t been since that day we left your box where it is planted next to where your grandfather’s box will rest one day. Cross-legged on the ground next to that silver with blue butterfly tree, I wept through tissues balled up, piled high. God always knows the way, and as I sat there I opened His book, reading and relishing the histories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. A moment of clarity tiptoed like a boulder into my consciousness.


You, son, are with our God who walled out the licking furnace flames and locked lion jaws. Dripping from mind through cells is this truth that you have gone to a God who calms seas or splits them open for His pleasure. A God who seats and unseats kings and rulers and wise men, awarding kingdoms to whom He will. You are in the presence of our God who by the word of His power spoke the universe into existence.

Sitting there next to your buried box, I felt His peace surround and comfort me, flowing through and around me like a light calming. Feeling the day your shell box came to live here, again I wept but now filled and resting in the truth about Who holds you.

Row after row after row of vases full of flowers marked the ashes to ashes dust to dust end here for us all and I was completely at peace for the first time in 13 weeks and 4 days in the presence of our all things are possible God.

Lasting only moments, the peace like one of those blue butterflies floated up and away - the gray of the grief cloak settling once more, but me left with a God glimmer of future where I'll never be whole, but I will survive because You are God.

And I thank you for sister and her silver blue butterfly tree gift for Zachery. What a Christmas he will have this year.