I believe God speaks to us through many things and in many ways. Yesterday a butterfly was the way He touched my husband and me and our young six year old granddaughter. For her sixth birthday we’d told her we’d take her to the zoo and the day finally came to go. The weather wasn’t as good as hoped and we weren’t sure how things would go but we’d promised her, so we went.

The place she wanted to visit, first of all, was the Butterfly House, which is enclosed and kept warm for the butterflies. She had dreams of having a butterfly on her finger and had spoken of it many times. We told her that it might happen but couldn’t promise.

We had to follow a pathway to get there so stopped to look at a few other animals along the way and she was anxious to get there, but eventually we did – or, at least the line up. With current COVID conditions, they limit how many can go inside the Butterfly House at the one time, with face masks on. We waited around 15 mins – less than we were told it might be (up to 40 mins). Once we did get into the area we were advised no touching of butterflies – although you could see many children desperately trying to get one on their finger. I wonder if there’s a story or something they’ve been told at school? I’d love to know. Anyway, we explained to Miss K that it couldn’t happen but if she was lucky one might land on her. And one did, on her hat – a couple of times, but she never got to see that as it was on her head. She took it off, on our suggestion, and then was delighted to see one land. When you see the hat perhaps you can understand why.

 

Very soon we were asked to move on, so that more people could enter the area, so we moved out and then onto a nearby eating area by the elephants, ready to move on with our day, after having lunch. And that’s when the surprise happened. My husband got us some lunch and we sat at a table under shelter. It was a cold day, a bit windy, had been showering now and then. Not really the ideal day for being at the zoo, and definitely not a warm day. As I ate my lunch I looked down at the bag it came in and couldn’t believe my eyes. There sat, a butterfly, very similar to the one that landed on Miss K’s hat in the Butterfly House. Now, we were sure there were none on us when we left the house – we were being careful about that, but here sat a butterfly on our table. How it got there we have no idea. We expected it to fly off, but it didn’t, so took some photos and then eventually let Miss K carefully put her finger close by to see what would happen. It climbed on and stayed still. Then when she moved her finger it moved to her jumper and stayed there. Amazing. Didn’t fly off at all!  We did fully expect it would.

Miss K said we needed to take it back to the Butterfly House but we weren’t sure we could go back in the Exit and didn’t want to line up in a long line at the Entrance. Just as we were discussing what to do, one of the Butterfly Zookeeper staff passed by – he’d been getting his lunch. I called out to him and he came over and I pointed to the butterfly. He then told us that it was too cold for it to fly out here and he’d take it back to the house. So, somehow a butterfly got out of the house, and landed on our table so that Miss K could have her wish. And then the right person turned up at the right time, so it could be taken safely back to where it belonged.  Both my husband and I felt that God had a hand in this and we shared that with Miss K too. She smiled at us, nodding her head and her eyes shining. She’s got a story to tell when she goes back to school in a couple of weeks and the photos to show as well.