Madeiran Monarch

Photograph by Douglas Carrie (My Father)

The Butterfly

Text by: unknown author ( I came across this text in the Boho magazine Summer edition)

There once was a man who found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day, a small opening appeared. The man sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force it’s body through the hole.

Then, the butterfly 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 cocoon open. It looked as if the butterfly was finally relieved of it’s struggle.

But something was wrong. The butterfly emerged with a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. However, that never happened.

For the rest of that butterfly’s life, it was never able to fly.

What the man thought he had done in kindness was actually a disruption of what helps the butterfly spread it’s wings and fly. For what happens in that very difficult stage of life: the struggle, the pressure and the pain, is actually what causes the butterfly to emerge from a simple little caterpillar into a gorgeous colorful winged freedom flyer.

Sometimes we like to bypass our own struggles, yet they are exactly what we need. Problems in life are not God-sent, but they are God-used. The strength and knowledge that arises in adversity is what gives us our wings.

The only way for anyone to emerge into a butterfly is to not cut short our time in the cocoon. Instead, recognize it’s exactly what we need to grow those glorious wings and start to fly.

My Butterfly Girl in her cocoon