Wordless Wednesday -#13 Friends, Cats and Tahoe 4th of July Style

This Wordless Wednesday is a bit of an update for the past two weeks.

Two weekends ago I got to go to San Francisco and see one of my amazing friends that I hadn't seen for over a year and a half!

(Celia and I)

Yesterday when I got home from Tahoe I set up my "dog/cat tent" that I've had for a few years. Both cats immediately claimed it.

While I didn't have my nice camera, I did have my handy dandy point and shoot. Here're the pictures from my week in Tahoe..starting with the beautiful fireworks!

(Mom feeding the Stellar Jays peanuts off our back deck in Tahoe)

The Butterfly and the Cocoon

The Butterfly and the Cocoon

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. The man sat and watched the cocoon for several hours as the butterfly struggled to force its body through the little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making progress. It appeared as if the butterfly had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. The man decided to help the butterfly in its struggle. 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.

He continued to watch the butterfly. He expected that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to be able to support the body. He knew that in time the body would contract, and the butterfly would be able to fly.

But 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 Nature’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.

~Author Unknown