The Butterfly
I’d like to leave you with this story. Think of it when you find life’s
experiences difficult to deal with.
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening
appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to
force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any
progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no
farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors
and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged
easily. Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled
wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any
moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
which would contract in time.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling
around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through
the small opening of the cocoon are God's way of forcing fluid from the
body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it
achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through all our life without any obstacles,
that would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could
have been. Not only that, we could never fly.
—Origin Unknown