Today a 47 year old prison guard came to my office depressed, sad, in deep grief for his 17 year old athlete son. He drowned in the river 6 years ago attempting to save a friend. Now this same man lost his mother when he was 12 and just recently his dearly beloved best friend/father. He was not sleeping well. Grief was overtaking him again. After a good session about PTSD he mentioned that the week after his son died he tried to drink his problems away in the garage after dinner, but a big Monarch butterfly (black and yellow) would fly in through the open garage door, flutter around his head, light on his shoulder, and make a sound. The sound was uncannily familiar. His son would flick his Dads ears and make the same sound. Afterwhile it was so strange he finally he gave up drinking and pulled his life together. He was doing okay until his Dad died. Now he felt like giving up again. Until I pointed a picture I was given a few years ago after a speaking engagement, hanging on my office wall. It was a handstitched, framed picture of a beautiful black and yellow Monarch butterfly with the words from Corinthians 1: 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— I took the picture off the wall and gave it to him to take with him. He sat and cried, his hands trembling. But he was beaming, new hope in his eyes. Now I know why I saw that huge Monarch fluttering around my office window a few days ago.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 20:07:32 +0000