real stories

Thursday, May 19, 2005

STRUGGLE!

Trials in life can be tragedies or triumphs, depending on how we handle them. Triumphs
don't come without effort.
A biology teacher was teaching his students how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. He
told the students that in the next couple of hours, the butterfly would struggle to come out
of the cocoon. But no one should help the butterfly. Then he left.
The students were waiting and it happened. The butterfly struggled to get out of the
cocoon, and one of the students took pity on it and decided to help the butterfly out of the
cocoon against the advice of his teacher. He broke the cocoon to help the butterfly so it
didn't have to struggle anymore. But shortly afterwards the butterfly died.
When the teacher returned, he was told what happened. He explained to this student that
by helping the butterfly, he had actually killed it because it is a law of nature that the
struggle to come out of the cocoon actually helps develop and strengthen its wings. The
boy had deprived the butterfly of its struggle and the butterfly died.
Apply this same principle to our lives. Nothing worthwhile in life comes without a struggle.
As parents we tend to hurt the ones we love most because we don't allow them to
struggle to gain strength.