| One day while walking through the woods, a man found a
cocoon. He decided to take the cocoon home to watch its
transformation into a beautiful butterfly. He gently placed
it on his table and watched it for several days.
One day, a small opening appeared and the cocoon started
to move.
The old man sat and watched it for several hours as it
struggled and struggled to force its body from the cocoon.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared
as if it had gotten as far as it could and was unable
to go any farther. Finally, the old man feeling sorry
for the cocooned butterfly, decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining
bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then easily emerged.
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
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 its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles,
it would only cripple us. We would not be as strong as
what we could have been.
And we could never fly.
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