Struggles . . . and the reason for them

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Waxing philisophical today . . .

My oldest daughter, Corey, was 7 years old and just beginning her fascination with the menagerie of creatures God placed on this world. Even a mere trip to the back yard brought her face-to-face with mysteries that enthralled her. One day while playing in the back yard near a large oak tree that still stands close to 100 feet tall to this day, she happened upon a butterfly's cocoon.  Imagine her delight as she noticed movement within the cocoon and soon noticed a small hole from which the butterfly was attempting to emerge. She stood there, oblivious to everything else around her, waiting for its entry into the world. The butterfly's tiny legs and body only made it through that tiny hole about 1/5 of its body length, and then it seemed to give up, unable to squeeze through the tiny hole.


Mortified that the butterfly would be unable to get through that tiny hole in its cocoon and would soon die from exposure or predator, Corey ran into the house to get the scissors she used to cut construction paper. Upon her return to the cocoon, scissors in hand, she carefully cut at one end of the existing hole to enlarge it. She successfully enlarged the hole, and the butterfly renewed its efforts to emerge from the cocoon. With its exit now enlarged, the butterfly easily made its way out of the cocoon, but Corey noticed that it was not the beautiful, bright butterfly that she expected. Its body was swollen, and its wings were small and shriveled. It flopped onto the ground and crawled about feebly, unable to take to the air with its malformed, misshapen wings. Feeling sorry for butterfly who couldn't fly, she found a mayonnaise jar and kept the butterfly in the open jar for days (unknown to her mother and me), hoping that its wings would eventually take their proper shape.

When the butterfly died a few days later, she finally told me of it. She was heartbroken and didn't understand why a butterfly would come into the world only to die that way. When she relayed to me about how she had helped the butterfly emerge into the world, I realized (having a degree in Biology) what had happened and why it had happened. And in the answer to her, there is a lesson all of us must realize about life and the challenges we face, even during the times we’re wallowing in self-pity over some hardship we’re facing.

What Corey did not realize when she set the butterfly free by making its exit easy was that there was a reason that the hole was small and why the butterfly had to go through the struggle to enter the world in that way. The hole was small because it's nature's way of forcing excess fluid from the butterfly's body into the wings, strengthening them so they would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. In removing the struggle for the butterfly, her kindness also ensured the butterfly would emerge crippled.

If we run away from the challenges and struggles that are thrown our way, we do not allow ourselves to become stronger. If we do not allow ourselves to grow at the pace that has been put before us, we take away the lessons that give us that strength. Like the butterfly, there are reasons we are taken to task - to eventually allow us to take flight from what we learn and what we endure from the struggles.