Is each stage of a butterfly's life like a season of the year? — Matthew of Brookfield , WI

Dear Matthew,

In many ways, they could not be more different. But they do have at least one thing in common: change. Just as a tree might go from blossoms, to lush green leaves, to striking autumn colors, and then to stark branches and twigs, so a butterfly goes from egg, to caterpillar, to pupa and, finally, to adult.

That "finally" is the big difference. Seasons keep on going year after year, but a butterfly lives only once. All a butterfly can do is lay more eggs so that it can make more of its own kind, and then it dies. Winter always turns into spring, but an adult butterfly never turns into an egg. The regular cycle of the seasons is something that God promised us after the Flood. "While the earth remains," He told Noah, "seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night, shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22).