Struggles of a Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening
appeared and he 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 man decided to help the butterfly, so he 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 man continued to watch the butterfly because he 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 man, 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.