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.
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.
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The lesson?
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What the man -- in his kindness and haste -- did not understand -- was that the butterfly needed the struggle.
It needed to battle through the tiny opening -- this was nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings -- so that it would be ready for flight once it freed itself from the cocoon.
And so it is for all of us.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If we were capable of going through our lives without any obstacles - it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could be. We would never fly.
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.
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.
-----------------
The lesson?
-----------------
What the man -- in his kindness and haste -- did not understand -- was that the butterfly needed the struggle.
It needed to battle through the tiny opening -- this was nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings -- so that it would be ready for flight once it freed itself from the cocoon.
And so it is for all of us.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If we were capable of going through our lives without any obstacles - it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could be. We would never fly.
Yep, struggle is a process and once the process is completed, there should be strength and understanding gained to take us to the next level. Mother's struggle with this when it comes to our children; we want to help them through the process but they too, have to go through it although we hope its not to be as difficult as the one we hurdled over.