The Butterfly Girl and the Miracle Song

About 52 years ago a "butterfly" girl was born to our pastor's wife's brother. 

He and his wife named her Beverly, and her sister, at her funeral Friday, said she always thought of her as a butterfly. 

She was normal and perfect in every way, I assume, just like my little grandbaby--until she succumbed to the Asiatic or some such flu at the age of 17 months. After her temperature hovered at 107 degrees for several days, she was never the same. Ever afterward, she was crippled and handicapped, unable to talk, walk or care for herself. Her parents cared for her as long as they could, and then had to put her in a special home. 

Finally pneumonia took her a few days ago, but not before her sister from Colorado Springs flew in to spend the last night with her. And not before her aunt Rathel (twin sister to our pastor's wife Mathel) went to be with her during her last night. Beverly had been preceded in death by not only her father but also two siblings. Her aunt Rathel, who wanted to sing to her, had been unable to sing for two years due to throat issues.

But last Friday night in Mississippi, in that lonely room full of a silent butterfly girl and a grieving almost 80-year-old aunt from Missouri, an angel touched not the lips of the aunt, but the throat. 

And for an hour, Aunt Rathel, who could not sing,

sang. 

Friday at the funeral, Beverly's sister shared that she had always thought of her sister as a butterfly. 

For seventeen months of her life, she was a cute, fuzzy caterpillar.

Then she went into a cocoon for 50 years.

And now, in heaven, she has finally become a butterfly--whole again!

The following morning, as Beverly's other aunt, (Mathel) our own pastor's wife, was having her devotional reading, the verse was from Psalm 32. 

"You surround me with songs."

Friday night in Mississippi, angels and an aunt that could not sing

surrounded a butterfly girl with songs. 

And the next morning in South Dakota, it must have been another angel that whispered about the songs to that aunt's twin sister, our pastor's wife.