On this page you will find stories, poems, and tidbits which offer sharing, insight, and encouragement in the Christian faith and living the Christian life. Some are light and fun. Some are very serious or thought provoking. If you have something you would like to submit to be included in this part of Teen Mountain, please send it to the_encourager.geo@yahoo.com. NOTE: Authorship is important. If you submit something, tell us if you are the author or include the author's name if possible. Many pieces circulate on the Internet with no mention of the author. If you see an item here without an author's name, it is because we haven't yet found out who the author is. If you know who authored any of these items, please let us know so that we may update our information here.
One day a small opening appeared
on a cocoon. A man sat and watched for 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 it 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, shriveled
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 shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was
that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the
butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God'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.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life . If
God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it
would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have
been, we could never fly.
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This page last modified on 7/01/99