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
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
achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.
If Life allowed us to go through it without any obstacles,
we would not be as strong as what we could have been.
We could never fly!