破繭的蝴蝶

BUTTERFLY

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!

【助讀詞匯】

◇cocoon n. 繭

◇scissors n. 剪刀

◇snip v.剪，剪斷

◇emerge vi. 浮(出)現

◇restrict  vt. 限制，控制

◇fluid n. 流體，液體

◇cripple vt.使跛，使傷殘

【參考譯文】

破繭的蝴蝶

有個人找到了一個蝶繭。有一天這個蝶繭上出現了一個小小的縫隙，于是他坐下來看著蝴蝶掙扎著想要把自己的身體從那個小洞里擠出來，這一看就是幾個小時。然后這只蝴蝶似乎沒有任何進展了，似乎它已經用盡了全力，再也動不了。

所以這個人決定要幫助蝴蝶。他拿來了一把剪刀，把蝶繭剩下的部分都剪開了。于是蝴蝶很容易就出來了。但是它的身體很臃腫，而翅膀卻很少，像是干枯了似的。

這個人繼續看著蝴蝶，因為他想蝴蝶的翅膀隨時都可能會變大并擴張到可以支撐它的整個身體，它的身體也會及時地縮小。

什么都沒有發生！事實上，這只蝴蝶的余生都要帶著它臃腫的身體和干枯的翅膀爬來爬去了。它永遠都不能飛翔了。

這個好心而草率的人不懂的是那個蝶繭以及破繭時的掙扎是蝴蝶必須的，它必須通過這樣的方法把身體里面的液體擠入翅膀里，這樣蝴蝶在破繭之時就可以展翅飛翔了，上帝就是這樣安排的。有時候掙扎正是我們生活中所需要的。如果上帝允許我們的生活沒有任何障礙，我們就會變成殘廢。我們將不會發掘潛力變得強大，我們將永不能飛翔！

【人生啟迪】

古人云：“天將降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志。”其意是說苦難是成功的必經之路，所有幻想能在安逸中有一番作為的，都將成為空想。就讓我們從現在開始就做好經歷苦難的準備，也做好成功地準備吧！