Butterfly

The butterfly is a fascinating creature. It is truly a work of art: beautiful colors and delicacy, flying high and wide on gossamer wings- free.
But the butterfly didn't begin its life in such a lofty state. In its earliest stages it was a caterpillar; crawly, slow, unattractive, plodding along inch by inch. I wonder if in its wildest dreams it ever imagined what its destiny could be.
Later in its development it spent time locked in a cocoon of it's own making - alone and perhaps even secure - warm and safe. There, through the simple yielding of its nature to a higher nature, it becomes one of God's most wondrous and glorious creatures.
Before transformation was complete, however, an intense and agonizing struggle had to be worked through. In order to become the magnificent creature it was destined to be, it first had a life and death struggle to work its way out of the cocoon - an exhaustive and seemingly impossible task for such a delicate creature. Could she endure?
On one occasion a well-meaning person watching this struggle decided to help the helpless butterfly, since it seemed such a gargantuan task for it to have to do on its own. So the person carefully sliced an opening in the cocoon with a razorblade and the butterfly was indeed able to get out much more quickly. The problem was that the butterfly was never able to fly. You see, the struggle is actually part of the butterfly's way of becoming a butterfly, and the strength it gains through the struggle gives it the strength needed for flying. By solving the butterfly's problem, the person had created a flightless butterfly.
The butterfly's develpment from a crawly, creeping, caterpillar to a glorious free-flying butterfly depends on the butterfly's acceptance and achievement of it's own struggle - on its faith that the struggle would lead it to something better.
If only we, as people, would accept our lives and the changes in it with the same faith as that of the lowly caterpillar, perhaps we too, would see that we can "fly". We are called to pray and trust in willingness to wait in patient expectation. Will not God who provides such a glorious end for the little caterpillar provide for us in a way that we cannot envision? Even in our wildest dreams?