I found the lovely short story
I’ve shared below while browsing online and it got me thinking.
When tough times invade our
lives or when bad things happen to us or our loved ones, it can be incredibly
hard to understand and accept. Sometimes there just seems no sense in what is
happening or has happened.
It can be anything – a
business failing, a relationship falling apart, a loved one dying before their
time, diagnosis of a terminal illness, an accident that leaves you or a loved
one injured – we’ve all been there, we’ve all faced such difficult situations.
When I sustained a spinal
injury in a car accident in 2006 that left me completely paralysed, I had a
hard time making sense of it. I was confused and angry and I raged at the
unfairness of it all. I drove myself in ‘why me’ mode for some time – why is
this happening to me, what did I do to deserve this, why is life so unfair to
me. I looked for answers where there were no answers.
And I was terrified. The
future looked dark and threatening and there was no light at the end of the
tunnel!
But God is good and the
prayers of loved ones and the faithful were with me. I started working my way
through this fog of anger and to sort out my feelings. I began to realise that
my life could not have been any different. What happened needed to happen; it just
needed to be the way it was.
I started to focus on my new
reality and to centre my energy on things I could do. I let go of the whys and
wherefores and started to look at the things I could control and act upon; things
that would make a difference.
That difficult point in my
life forced me to grow and become a better me. It was the necessary fire that gave
me a new direction and purpose and I’m better and stronger because of it.
Things fall apart so things can fall
together……..
The Cocoon & the
Butterfly
A man found
a cocoon of a butterfly that he brought home.
One day a
small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as
it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop
making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and
could go no further.
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 then emerged easily. But it had a
swollen body and small, shrivelled wings.
The man
continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the
wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would
contract in time.
Neither
happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around
with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the
man, in his kindness and haste, had failed to understand was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through
the tiny opening were God’s way of training the butterfly and strengthening its
wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from
the cocoon.
Sometimes
struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go
through our lives without any obstacles, we would never know what we’re capable
of.
We would not
be as strong as what we could have been. We would never fly!