"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach

With this quote in mind....read the following inspirational story about another phase of the life of a butterfly.....

A man was out one day taking his daily walk when he came upon the a cocoon of a butterfly. Over the following days the man watched the cocoon and then one day a small opening appeared in it. He sat and watched and as he did a butterfly a began to force its body through the small opening in the cocoon. The butterfly struggled and it's struggle went on for quite sometime. After awhile the butterfly seemed to stop making progress. It appeared that the butterfly had gotten as far as it could and unable to go on. This troubled the watching man and so he decided to help the butterfly in it's struggle to be free of the cocoon.. He took out his penknife and with the inbuilt snippers carefully cut away the remaining shell of the cocoon.
Free now of the remaining cocoon the butterfly emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The man remained watching the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the insect's wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.
Unfortunately neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its like crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never to fly in all it's lifetime.
The road to ruin can often be paved with the best of intentions.
Though the man had acted in the best of intentions, in his kindness and haste in removing the remaining piece of the cocoon, he had deprived the butterfly the necessary struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, this is nature'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.                                                   Cite  (http://saveyourmarriage-now.com/Joomla/index.php/articles/41-marriage-and-relationship-articles/95-the-butterfly.html) Retrieved 7/9/11 at 7:52 pm 

     I had heard this story quite a long time ago and it is a GREAT story in my opinion to explain why we sometimes go through what we do to eventually get where we are. And if we always let everyone else do everything for us, we will always be limited.  If we work it out, it will strengthen us mentally to endure whatever may come our way.  (Not saying you cannot take advice from friends or family--make sure it is good advice and avoid emotional input because that can sometimes be damaging to our thinking. Do not think you cannot belong to support groups because many times it is helpful to see we are not the only ones going through the situation--not to mention seeing others that made it through and came out on the other side.)
     If you notice in the opening quote of this blog it explains the caterpillar's journey only to be cocooned away from the world and then emerge from the cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly--not so true in our little story.  The "struggle" and "fight" the butterfly endures is what causes its large beautiful wings to grow and creates a  lighter body to take flight to see and do things the butterfly could have never done without the process. Keep this in mind....each one of us has a journey and we ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME STRUGGLES ALONG THE WAY.  It is how you respond to those struggles and what thoughts (are they positive? They should be.) you have that will make the outcome take flight and show you things you may have not seen otherwise.   

If you have a story along these lines please feel free to share. We all like to hear the times of struggle where the person came out on the other side stronger and wisdom gained.