Ordeals are gifts

One day a small opening appeared on a cocoon. A man sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through out that hole. So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon .... The butterfly came out with ease. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand to support the butterfly's body, and make him fly.

But nothing happened. The butterfly's spent it's entire life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings. It never flew. Despite the man's kindness and good intentions he did not understand that the difficulties which followed as the butterfly emerged through out the cocoon, were necessary, so that the blood from the body of the butterfly came into its wings, and so that when freed from the cocoon it was ready to fly.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in life. We would never be as strong as we could have. We would never fly. 

This story can actually be compared to the relationship between a parent and it's child. Most of the time as parents we think that we get closer to our kids, or even do them well if we constantly act overly protective of them. Yes it is hard to see your child"fall and hurt itself". It is painful to see them cry and struggle in life, but if they do not fall once or twice they will miss out on several lessons in life which might come up and bite them in the back later on.

Falling simply teaches them how to get back up.

 Surely we want to always be there for them and protect them but is that reality? Will we really always be there for them? Sadly but true, we won't. The person who will always be closest to them is their own selves. This is why they need to be able to have trust and faith in their own strength and in their own self as it will be a lot easier for them to go through life's difficulties.

If they fall in front of you today, they will fall without you tomorrow.  Let them struggle and find their own comfort and their own strength.

You as a parent have nothing to worry about. People are stronger than they think, and all they need is a little bit of challenge to guide them into being strong individuals .  

Allah swt has promised us that He will not put an ordeal on us which we can not manage with. 

"We task not any soul beyond its capabilities". 23:62 (Qur'an)

Another lesson that we can draw out of this story is that it can very easily be applied to our selves as well.  Each one of us goes through ordeals. And most of the time we let it weaken us and we forget that it was there to make us stronger in the first place. 

We need to see beyond the ordeals. We need to find the wisdom in them. Allah swt has put a wisdom into everything! In order to understand these ordeals we have to get closer to Allah swt and build up a relationship with Him (swt). Do we all know what our relation to Allah swt is?

When you have a close friend, you know what that friend thinks even if she/he doesn't say anything. You know what she/he wants just by observing his/hers body language. So if you are close to someone you create a special bond with each other which allows you to read one another's wishes and thoughts.

Ordeals are puzzles formed as happenings in life.When you put them together you will get a structure of yourselves. These puzzles look different and they can either look good or look bad to us (depending on how we look at them). However, each one of those puzzles come in it's right timing and we have to have our eyes wide open in order to notice these missing peaces so that we can build ourselves.

Some ordeals start in a early age and we realize after perhaps 10 years that if Allah swt hadn't sent the base of our structure back then (given us the ordeals that we went through), we as a structure would have collapsed by now as we are faced with life's other difficulties. 

We do not see the blessings that are hidden in ordeals and that is really sad. If you are a person who has had a tough life, all I have to say to you is...You are one lucky book of inspiration! 

You are full of experiences, and full of opportunities.   A person who has lot's of knowledge but lacks in experience can not be compared to a person who is full of experience and lacks in knowledge.

 Experience is the key to almost everything. You can use you ordeals and help others who went through what you went through. U can use experience to argue right from wrong in serious debates. You can use ur experience and write a book, make a movie, preach, or even use all of your feelings and energy and put them into charity organizations. Build schools and homes. YOU with your ordeals can change the world into a better place, a lot easier than a person who wasted all his/her life in front of a screen, eating chips and doing nothing...

Why?

Because you know what it feels like to hurt. You know what poverty feels like. You know what fear means. You know what it's like to be out of control over your condition. 

You know what it's like to be a human being! And that my friend is a PRIORITY in life that only a few of us can realize... 

so because of all of this, you are filled with so much more will, feelings, motivation and strength..  

use YOUR gifts... 

 Leave your comments and tell me what your conclusions are :)