s t r u g g l e

a girl found a cocoon of a butterfly.
one day a small opening appeared and
she sat and watched the butterfly as
it struggled for several hours to force
its body through the little hole.
then it seemed to stop making any progress.
it appeared it had gotten as far as it could.
the girl decided to help the butterfly,
so she took a pair of scissors and
snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon.

the butterfly then emerged easily,
but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
the girl continued to watch the butterfly because
she expected that, at any moment, the wings
would expand and be able to support the body,
which would contract in time.

neither happened!
in fact, the butterfly spent its whole life
crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
it was never able to fly.
what the girl, in kindness and haste, did not understand
was that the restricting cocoon
and the struggle required 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 freedom.

sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
if God allowed us to go through life without obstacles,
it would cripple us.
we would not be as strong as we could have been.

and... we would never fly.