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 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 lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!
【助读词汇】
-cocoon n. 茧
-scissors n. 剪刀
-snip v.剪，剪断
-emerge vi. 浮(出)现
-restrict vt. 限制，控制
-fluid n. 流体，液体
-cripple vt.使跛，使伤残
【参考译文】
有个人找到了一个蝶茧。有一天这个蝶茧上出现了一个小小的缝隙，于是他坐下来看着蝴蝶挣扎着想要把自己的身体从那个小洞里挤出来，这一看就是几个小时。然后这只蝴蝶似乎没有任何进展了，似乎它已经用尽了全力，再也动不了。
所以这个人决定要帮助蝴蝶。他拿来了一把剪刀，把蝶茧剩下的部分都剪开了。于是蝴蝶很容易就出来了。但是它的身体很臃肿，而翅膀却很少，像是干枯了似的。
这个人继续看着蝴蝶，因为他想蝴蝶的翅膀随时都可能会变大并扩张到可以支撑它的整个身体，它的身体也会及时地缩小。
什么都没有发生！事实上，这只蝴蝶的余生都要带着它臃肿的身体和干枯的翅膀爬来爬去了。它永远都不能飞翔了。
这个好心而草率的人不懂的是那个蝶茧以及破茧时的挣扎是蝴蝶必须的，它必须通过这样的方法把身体里面的液体挤入翅膀里，这样蝴蝶在破茧之时就可以展翅飞翔了，上帝就是这样安排的。有时候挣扎正是我们生活中所需要的。如果上帝允许我们的生活没有任何障碍，我们就会变成残废。我们将不会发掘潜力变得强大，我们将永不能飞翔！
【人生启迪】
古人云：“天将降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志。”其意是说苦难是成功的必经之路，所有幻想能在安逸中有一番作为的，都将成为空想。就让我们从现在开始就做好经历苦难的准备，也做好成功地准备吧！