Waiting for summer

I never had a good answer. Then one day, I watched the BBC’s Frozen Planet and there it was, staring me in the face. A creature with an appearance so unassuming, an existence so painstaking, and an adaptation so extraordinary that I felt I’d found my zoological counterpart: the Arctic woolly bear moth (Gynaephora groenlandica).

Arctic woolly bears start life like any other moth, as caterpillars. But because Arctic summers are so short, they can’t feed enough to metamorphose in one season. So they eat what they can when the weather is warm, freeze solid in the winter, defrost in spring, eat a little more, then freeze again. And they go through this cycle over and over, for 7-14 years, until finally, they’ve stored up enough nutrition to go through their final transformation.

Incredible, right? And when I saw those ice crystals forming and thawing, forming and thawing around that caterpillar, like the seasons of hardship and waiting that’ve characterised my life, I thought, That’s me, right there. Never knowing the joys of a full summer like many butterflies and moths, but managing to feed just enough when the weather is warm to survive, winter after winter, by the grace of God.

It feels like He made this little insect just to remind me that one day, no matter how long it takes, this drawn-out caterpillar existence will come to an end.

… What a beautiful summer that will be.