THE BUTTERFLY

A man found a cocoon of 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 that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as
it could, and it could go no further.


So the man decided to help the butterfly
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining
bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
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 lives.
If God allowed us to go through our lives without
any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as
what we could have been.
We could never fly!