Fluttering Reminders of God's Presence

One of the ‘side-effects’ of having a holiday break can be reluctance to launch back into regular life. 

This hit home for me after a recent mini-vacation. Especially as it meant we left a cool-quiet-bush-thatched-cottage environment to come back into a very hot house on one of the hottest days of the season in a noisy, village location. Then to add ‘insult to injury’ as the saying goes, it happened to be also a day without power due to an area fault and no water due to a pump breakdown for the area. Then on top of that the guys who were house-sitting for us, enjoyed the fact we have a back-up water tank but forgot to make sure it got refilled if they had to use any of it…so our normal ready water supply was unavailable due to that, as well as not accessible because the pump couldn’t work with the power out! 

As much as I love ministry and continue to be so excited about all that God is doing…part of me didn’t want to be back. I actually haven’t felt quite like this after any other break away.

But then the goodness of God overwhelmed me!

I was home alone and had to go and adjust something on the tank and as I did, I passed some flowers that had been profusely blooming in our absence. I picked some to enjoy inside. And as I did so, I noticed a type of butterfly I hadn’t seen for a while - a ‘Dotted Border'. So I grabbed the camera and came back to take a few photos.

But as I did, another type of butterfly also arrived - a particularly beautiful one called the Blue Pansy, which reflects light in various ways on its spots depending on the angle of the sun. I had not seen this one at all in the years we have lived at this house, and it was one of the first that I photographed years back when I first started photographing butterflies. 

Then suddenly several other large Citrus Swallowtail butterflies also ‘turned up’ all at once. 

I seemed to be surrounded with fluttering colour and all within good photographing distance, with hardly moving my feet at all!…and it was just like God was saying…’I am here’. Not that I don’t know that as a fact. But to have visual reminders is always wonderful. 

God fills our world with reminders of His presence but also knows our every situation and how to cheer us and encourage us to rest in Him.