Struggles...

I received this little story in my e-mail from a motivational subscription I signed up for at http://www.arinanikitina.com . It spoke to me so I thought I would pass it on for others.


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 squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn't go further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining
bits of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily but it had
a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute
the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the
body.
Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not
understand: The restricting cocoon and the struggle
required by the butterfly to get through the opening was
a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings
so that it would be ready for flight once that was
achieved.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.
Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.
We will not be as strong as we could have been and we
would never fly.
Arina