Dance of the Butterflies

by Donna Poole

I’m standing in a country field in a comforting September silence, alone except for the thousands, perhaps millions of butterflies dancing with delight over the wildflowers. My memories are fading fast—the horrified looks of my comrade firefighters when we realized the thuds we heard among the shrieking sounds of collapsing metal and screams for help were bodies—bodies hitting the canopy. People were jumping to their deaths?

I looked up at the twisted building torn almost in two by the plane and I ran for the stairs. I had to help people get out.

I prayed as my feet pounded the steps, prayed for my wife and babies at home, prayed for my own safety, prayed God would help me rescue some from this burning hell. Smoke seared my lungs and blinded my eyes, but I did save a few before pain, unbearable crushing pain unlike anything I’d ever imagined in my thirty-two years pinned me down. I must have passed out.

This field, is it a dream? I hold out my hand, and butterflies land on it. I feel their tiny feet before they fly away to rejoin the dance.

I breathe deeply, the sweetest air I’ve ever known. My eyes are clear, no longer crying black, smoke-filled tears. Running through the field toward me I see so many people I’ve loved, my parents, my grandparents, my favorite Sunday school teacher when I’d been a little boy, so many family members and friends. I’m enveloped in love, and the butterflies dance around us.

Suddenly, the butterflies hover midflight, unmoving. My dear ones stop their shouts of rejoicing and fall to their faces. So do I. There they are, the Father, and the Son. Where is the Holy Spirit? Oh, I know. He fills my heart so completely that there is nothing left but love, and I weep tears of joy.

The Son lifts me up, and I look into His face, Jesus, the One I have loved so long. I kiss the nail print in His hand.  

“Thank you, my Savior, for taking my sin into your heart when you suffered on the cross, for taking my punishment, and making my sin not to be. Why, why did you do it?”

He throws back His head and laughs, and the melody fills the heavens. “I did it for love. Love is the reason for everything.”

The Father holds out His arms, holds me to His chest, and I feel the beating heart of the universe. With every beat it says, “love, love, love.”

I pull back, struggling to remember, the smoke, the screams, the suffering, the stench of death. “But why?” I ask.

“Love is not the law of earth yet,” the Father says. “But it will be someday. Will you help me with that?”

He stands me to my feet. The Lord Jesus takes my hand, holds it high, and says, “Of course he will. He has already begun. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Now millions take up the chant, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

But they aren’t looking at me. They are looking at Jesus, God the Son.

“Lord,” I whisper to Him, “what is the date?”

He smiles. “Do you mean in earth time?”

I nod.

“September 11, 2021.”

“What? 2021? But didn’t I get here just a minute ago on September 11, 2001?”

He laughs again, that beautiful sound. I can’t help but join, and so do millions upon millions of others.

“Yes,” He says. “It was just a minute ago heaven time.”

We’re standing on a bit of a hill; I can overlook the crowd and see the field with the butterflies. Still they dance.