Sometimes quickly sometimes slowly

The other day I stayed several steps behind my daughter watching her trying to learn to skate. I say "trying" because she was falling more than she was staying on her feet.

She looked at me and said, “Daddy, I just want to be able to go fast like my brother.” I smiled and helped her up again, and said, “He didn’t learn to skate fast before he learned to go slow.” She wanted me to hold her and pull her while she skated. I told her she had to learn how to stand on her own if she was ever going to get good.

This made me think of our slogan “Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly,” and how short cuts don’t usually help us - at least not on the things that matter most in life.

Through struggle we become stronger, but it's a slow, strenuous struggle. I once heard the story of a little boy who thought he would help a butterfly who seemed to struggle for days to escape its cocoon. As he cut open the cocoon he found a butterfly whose wings were deformed and too small for its engorged body.

You see, helping a developing butterfly out of its cocoon can result in a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. When a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, the process of pushing and struggling to break free actually helps to pump fluid into its wings, allowing them to expand and grow strong.

Much like that butterfly, If not for some of the hardships we have to endure, we wouldn’t know true peace. The serenity prayer says it best that we accept hardships as the pathway to peace.

My name is Dean P I’m a grateful believer in Jesus Christ striving for moral and sexual purity.