The Story of 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 squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.
The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings
would enlarge and expand enough to support the body,
Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest
of its life crawling around.
It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness
and haste did not understand:
The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly
to get through the opening was a way of forcing
the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready
for flight once that was achieved.

Sometimes struggles and graciously watching
struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.
Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.
We will not be as strong as we could have been
and we would never fly.