Struggling... A Butterfly's Story

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. 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 it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so 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.

And we would never fly.

~Author Unknown

While we all have struggles and trials, I truly believe that I am going through a process of emerging... yes things are hard right now... yes I am struggling in different areas of my life right now... but it is forcing strength into all of the parts of my world... and when I come through on the other side, I will be stronger and able to fly.

Randomness of Loss

I’m stuck in stage four ⁽¹⁾. Maybe it just feels like I’m stuck but no one knows how long each stage of grief can last. I’m thinking a lot about things we did, talks we had, fights we had, things about him that still make me laugh... and I thought I was “getting ok”... then a flash of his last breath or his name on the funeral home board will come into my mind and I can’t hold back the tears. It’s been two and a half months, everyone seems to have moved on but I can’t. Sometimes I’m angry but most of the time I just miss him. I miss him, and that makes me angry. I should be happy he is out of pain, happy, with his parents, and where he has always wanted to be. But what about what I wanted? I want him HERE I need him HERE, with me! I still need him. I hate that I am this selfish. I need to talk about him, I can’t help but remember all these things about him and our relationship, and I need to remember those things right now. I just wish I had someone to talk with, other than my Puppy. Puppy is starting to get sick to her stomach and I know it is because I am stressing her out talking to her about Dad – selfishness strikes once again. I can’t talk to Grace because she is so lost in her own world of depressive guilt that she has tunnel vision. I can’t talk to Mom because she is struggling with her own issues.MathMan is going through his own loss right now. And as happy as I am for Pixie and D getting back together, I wish I could talk to her about this but I can’t. She has her own crazyville going on and she is falling in love with D again so that takes up the rest of her time. I understand that, truly, I would probably be the same way if I met the right Person.

I'm trying not to blog too much about how hard this is for me, I want to refocus my posts onto my thoughts/feelings/perspectives relating to my surrender (or current lack of)... but even that reminds me of Dad. Not that I ever submitted to him in that crusty-inbred-Kentucky way, but because he was the one who taught me what the Bible says ⁽²⁾ about being a good loving obedient wife to a Christian Man.

I have been turning back to my faith for support, which also strengths my need to submit to the right Person.

I think this is enough rambling for today. Work is starting to pick up some so I should probably redirect my focus onto something productive.

~ I'm getting pretty fancy-smancy with the footnotes, eh? lol

(1) Stages of Grief

⁽²⁾ Proverbs 12:4; Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18-19. There are a lot more, but these were Dad's favorites. Here are some others I liked.