Struggles

  Reading a Pupas entry <-- click tonight in Steven's Sometimes Photo Blog, I was reminded of a story I heard one time and quickly scribbled down on paper, here it is ... 

     A man found a cocoon of a butterfly, one day a tiny opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force it's body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making progress, it appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further.

     So the man decides to help the butterfly, he took a small 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 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 it's life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings, it was never able to fly.

     What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that restricting cocoon and struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were natures way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into it's wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved it's freedom from the cocoon.

     I guess the point here is ... sometimes the struggles we are faced with, help make us strong enough to fly.

                         Author unknown, at least to me.

                                   *** Coy ***