The Cocoon and The Butterfly
Author Unknown

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 farther.

Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so
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 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 cripple
us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly.