Adversity: A Butterfly’s Early Struggle

“You can easily determine the caliber of a person by the amount of opposition it takes to discourage him.” ~ Unknown

A student found a cocoon one day and brought it to his biology teacher. She put it in a glass with a warming lamp. About a week later, the students saw a small opening appearing on the cocoon. Then, the cocoon began to shake. Suddenly, tiny antennae emerged, followed by a head and tiny feet. The students watched the progress of the emerging insect throughout the day. By noon it had freed its listless wings, the color revealing it to be a monarch butterfly. It wiggled and shook, but try as it might, it could not see, to force its body through the small opening. One student decided to snip off the end of the cocoon to help the insect. Out it plopped. Only the top half of it looked like a butterfly, however. The bottom half was large and swollen. The insect crawled about, dragging its listless wings, and a short time later died.

The next day, the biology teacher explained that the butterfly’s struggle to get through the tiny opening is necessary in order to force fluids from the swollen body into the wings so they will be strong enough to fly. Without the struggle, the wings never develop.

LESSON: Adversity and struggle can cause numerous things in our lives to develop. Rather than struggle against struggle, we need to struggle through our struggles!