Once upon a time, a man found a cocoon of a butterfly and saw a small opening in it. He stayed and watched the butterfly intently for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped making any progress. It seemed as though it was stuck.
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 was then able to emerge out of its cocoons easily although it had a swollen body and small wings. The man kept waiting for the wings to enlarge that would support the butterfly to take its first flight, but that didn’t happen. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly! Its existence was reduced to crawling around with tiny wings. The kind man didn’t understand that the struggle was important.
It was this struggle that the butterfly needed to get itself through the small opening and that it was God’s design of forcing fluid from the swollen body of the butterfly into its wings to prepare itself for flying once it was out of the cocoon.
Moral:
Our struggles in life foster our strength. Without these struggles we never grow and as a result never get stronger. There is always a silver lining in the challenges we face. For what it’s worth, it’s never too late or too early to be whoever you want to be. If you need to hear it, you have permission to choose yourself and to choose the highest version for your life. Give yourself credit for how far you have come. Be proud of yourself for being strong, getting through the rough phases of life, doing the best you can, not giving up and…. for smiling!