Butterfly
(Shahzad Shameem, Abbottabad)
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 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 lives. If God allowed us to
go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.