The Butterfly
One day while walking through the woods,
a man found a cocoon.
He decided to take the cocoon home
to watch
its transformation into a beautiful
butterfly.
He gently placed it on his table and
watched it for several days.
One day a small opening appeared
and the cocoon started to move.
The old man sat and watched it
for several hours as it struggled
and struggled to force its body from
the cocoon.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as
far as it
could and was unable to go any farther.
Finally, the old man feeling sorry
for the
cocooned butterfly, decided to help
the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped
off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then easily emerged.
But it had a swollen body and small,
shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly
because he expected that, 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 shriveled
wings.
It never was 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
tiny opening,
were 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 our
life without
any obstacles, it would only cripple
us.
We would not be as strong as what we
could have been.
And we could never fly.
~ Author Unknown ~
