Do you know what that strange word means? I expect most of our boy readers will not only know what it means, but maybe they have even found a cocoon, and kept it for a while. If you have, then you will know what my story is all about.
We were piling wood for the winter, and Gracie and Charlotte were busy helping, as little girls sometimes like to do.
“Daddy, what is this funny thing on the side of this piece of wood?”
“I do believe it is a cocoon. Let’s take it off very carefully and keep it, and then see what happens.”
Gracie had heard of cocoons before, but had never found one, so she very carefully lifted the cocoon and put it in a box.
“I would like to take it to my teacher tomorrow. May I?”
Just a very few days later she came home from school quite breathless. “Mother, Father, guess what happened to my cocoon. It turned into a beautiful Monarch butterfly!”
It seemed almost too wonderful to be true, and yet that is exactly what happened. A cocoon, you know, looks just as dead as can be. It feels cold and lifeless, but inside that cold dark body, there is a little life. At one time, a caterpillar was crawling along, and he stopped on the side of that very piece of wood, and slowly, with the wisdom which God has given to these creatures, he spun for himself that strange home which we call a cocoon. And then, after a long time of waiting, he came out again, but this time not a caterpillar, but a butterfly!
Don’t you think God is teaching us lessons by these strange things we see about us? We see a dried up little beet seed put into the ground, and before long there comes up a living plant.
What is the lesson that God intends us to learn? I believe it is this. He wants you to know that you are not always going to live in this world. You may be cold and lifeless, and laid away in the grave while young. Or you might grow old and wrinkled, and then be laid away. But that is not the end! Every boy and girl that ever lived, is going to live forever in eternity! Yes, even the little friends that have already been laid away in the cemetery will some day come out again and will stand before the Lord Jesus.
I know that when I stand before Him, He will welcome me home as one of the saved ones whose sins have been washed by His most precious blood. Are you saved too? When you stand before Him, for you surely will, will you be stained with sin, or cleansed and welcomed? If you are stained with sin, then it will be too late to be cleansed, and you will be cast away into the lake of fire. But He loves you so much that He wants to make you His very own, and soon to welcome you into heaven with the other boys and girls who have taken Him as their Saviour.
ML 04/04/1954