Walking down a path through some woods in Georgia in 1977, I saw a water puddle ahead on the path. I angled my direction to go around it on the part of the path that wasn’t covered by water and mud. As I reached the puddle, I was suddenly attacked!

Yet, I did nothing, for the attack was so unpredictable and from a source so totally unexpected. I was startled as well as unhurt, despite having been struck four or five times already. I backed up a foot and my attacker stopped attacking me. Instead of attacking more, he hovered in the air on graceful butterfly wings in front of me. Had I been hurt I wouldn’t have found it amusing, but I was unhurt, it was funny, and I was laughing. After all, I was being attacked by a butterfly!

Having stopped laughing, I took a step forward. My attacker rushed me again. He rammed me in the chest with his head and body, striking me over and over again with all his might, still to no avail. For a second time, I retreated a step while my attacker relented in his attack. Yet again, I tried moving forward. My attacker charged me again. I was rammed in the chest over and over again. I wasn’t sure what to do, other than to retreat a third time. After all, it’s just not everyday that one is attacked by a butterfly.

This time, though, I stepped back several paces to look the situation over. My attacker moved back as well to land on the ground. That’s when I discovered why my attacker was charging me only moments earlier. He had a mate and she was dying. She was beside the puddle where he landed. Sitting close beside her, he opened and closed his wings as if to fan her. I could only admire the love and courage of that butterfly in his concern for his mate. He had taken it upon himself to attack me for his mate’s sake, even though she was clearly dying and I was so large.

He did so just to give her those extra few precious moments of life, should I have been careless enough to step on her. Now I knew why and what he was fighting for. There was really only one option left for me. I carefully made my way around the puddle to the other side of the path, though it was only inches wide and extremely muddy.

His courage in attacking something thousands of times larger and heavier than himself just for his mate’s safety justified it. I couldn’t do anything other than reward him by walking on the more difficult side of the puddle. He had truly earned those moments to be with her, undisturbed. I left them in peace for those last few moments, cleaning the mud from my boots when I later reached my car.

Since then, I’ve always tried to remember the courage of that butterfly whenever I see huge obstacles facing me. I use that butterfly’s courage as an inspiration and to remind myself that good things are worth fighting for.

Tags: god, love, story

We often learn the most from our children.

Some time ago, a friend of mine punished his 3-year old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper.

Money was tight, and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father on Christmas morning and said, “This is for you Daddy.”

He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that the box was empty.

He yelled at her, “Don’t you know that when you give someone a present there is supposed to be something inside it?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into the box, all for you, Daddy.”

The father was crushed, he put his arms around his little girl and he begged for her forgiveness.

My friend told me that he kept that gold box by his bed for years.

Whenever he felt discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

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In a very real sense, each of us, as parents, has been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

Tags: children, father, god, love, story

The baby is teething, the children are fighting, and my husband just called and said to eat dinner without him. Okay, one of these days you’ll shout, “Why don’t you children grow up and act your age?”
………….. and they will.

Or, “You guys get outside and find yourself something to do and don’t slam the door.”
…………. and they won’t.

You’ll straighten up their bedrooms all neat and tidy with bumper stickers discarded, bed-spread tucked and smoothed, toys all displayed on the shelves, hangers in the closets, animals caged, and you’ll say out loud, “Now I want you to stay this way!”
…………. and they will.

Then you’ll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn’t been picked to death, a cake with no finger traces through the frosting, and you’ll say, “Now there’s a meal for company.”
………… but you’ll eat it alone.

And you’ll say, “I want complete privacy on the phone! No dancing around, no pantomimes, no demolition crews! Silence! Do you hear me?”
………… and you’ll have it.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti, no more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent, no more dandelion bouquets, no more iron-on patches, no more wet-knotted shoe strings, no more tight boots, or rubber bands on pony tails.

Now, imagine your lipstick with a point.

No baby sitter on New Year’s Eve. Washing clothes only once a week. No PTA meetings, no car pools, no blaring radios, having your own roll of tape, no more Christmas presents made out of toothpicks and paste, no more wet-oatmeal kisses, no tooth fairy, no giggles in the dark, no knees to Band-aid.

Only a memory of a voice crying, “Why don’t you grow up?”

And in the silence will come the echo, “I did.”

So capture every moment while they are growing up.

Tags: god, parents, thoughts