My 8-year-old grandson and I found empty cicada shells on the patio, split down the back, with the feet still attached to the columns.
“Oh, the poor bug is dead,” he said.
“No, he is still alive,” I told him. “He grew a new shell and slipped out of his old one and left it behind as he flew off on a new adventure.”
I picked the shell off the post and laid it down on the patio table for a lesson on insects.
“See this split on his back? That is where he escaped the old shell.”
“Why did he do that?”
“His old shell was wearing out and getting too tight, like the way you outgrow your clothes, so he grew a new shell while he was still inside the old one. When it was ready, he took off his old shell, like taking off a coat, and left it hanging here on the patio post.”
This explanation seemed to satisfy his curiosity and we went on to other things, but I couldn’t get that shell out of my mind.
Some day my old shell will be worn out and too tight, just like the June bug. When the time has come, my spirit—the real me inside—will step out of my physical body.
Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “So also is the resurrection of the dead….. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. ….As we have borne the image of the man of dust, [meaning Adam] we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [meaning Jesus Christ.] So when ……..this mortal [body] has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’” I Corinthians 15: 42-54 NKJV. (Inserts added by Lavon for clarity. Read it all for yourself.)
When you see my unoccupied body lying there, you will know it is only my shell. It isn’t me; I am off to a new adventure in my new body.