THE BUTTERFLY

OK, so the RETREAT was AWESOME!
I'm working on a post to summarize ALL the great stuff!
Of course I'll have some pics of the weekend too!
Thought I would post this while you wait.........
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My friend, Cheryl, sent me an email she thought I would like.  

I LOVED IT!..................

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 squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and
snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.
The butterfly emerged easily but
it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch it,
expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge
and expand enough to support the body,
Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling on the ground.
It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness
and haste did not understand:
The restricting cocoon and the struggle
required by the butterfly to get through the opening
was a way of forcing the fluid from the body
into the wings so that it would be ready
for flight once that was achieved.

Sometimes struggles are exactly
what we need in our lives.
Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.
We will not be as strong as we could have been
and we would never fly.

Author Unknown

As we each face our own struggles ("waiting room", perhaps?), 

may we develop what it is that we need.  To become who it is God created us to be.

I pray each one of you feels blessed today, in your journey to becoming a butterfly........