Pray For Obstacle

While we all pray for each other that one should not come across any
obstacle in life, I have a different view after reading the following:

We MUST come across obstacles and need to pray for each other to overcome
obstacles (with some pain) and progress.

One night recently my daughter was showing me an aquarium full of tadpoles.
She had purchased a whole bag
full of them for her children to watch grow from tadpoles into frogs.

I noticed that there was a big rock in the aquarium. When I asked her why
she put a rock right in the middle of the tadpoles' environment, she told me
an interesting story. I can hardly believe that I have lived all these years
without having heard it. It is so good and "life-essence saturated."

She said that she was instructed by the Pet Store Salesman to be sure to
"put a big rock right in the middle of the aquarium." He explained that "the
tadpoles must have this obstacle to give them the incentive to climb up and
thus split their little wiggly tails so that their legs can begin to
develop. If they have no rock or obstacle to climb up on, they will never
turn into frogs. They cannot learn how to hop by just swimming around in
water. They must have something causing resistance to give them the
incentive to leap forward.

The man went on to tell her that last year a school teacher came back to the
store and complained because none of her tadpoles had ever turned into
frogs. He asked her if she had put a big obstacle, like a rock, in the
middle of the aquarium. She said that she had not. She did not know that a
tadpole will remain a tadpole unless it faces some obstacle or barrier that
forces it to grow. Neither did I, but it makes perfect sense.

Well, I was amazed and delighted to hear that story. It helped me better to
see, once again, why life presents obstacles and barriers in front of us.
The barriers are not there to hinder us, but they are there to cause us to
grow. It is not so much what the object is in front of each one of us that
matters as much as it is our attitude towards it. If we realize that the
obstacle we are facing is really a GIFT that has come our way to help us
GROW & mature, we will be much more likely to face it in a positive way.

I have begun to see the obstacles I face in a different way. Instead of
being rocks in my path, those obstacles have become stepping stones to help
me leap forward in whatever situation I find myself.

I know that those little tadpoles have no idea what is going on. They just
are not that smart. The truth of the matter is, neither are we. Most of us
have no idea what all is going on in our lives either. We don't understand
that the barriers and obstacles, challenges, difficulties and hard times
that come our way each day are actually there for a purpose. There is no way
we will have the incentive to grow, or to become better, or to strive
harder, if everything in life is just a simple situation. I know the harder
I work at anything, the more profitable it is for me, not only financially,
but personally, in my own heart and character as well.

So, the next time you see a frog hopping around, smile at him and thank him
for the lesson, remembering the struggle he has gone through to get where he
is. Perhaps out in the wild somewhere, he faced a difficult rock or barrier
in his life, but rather than swimming away from it, he just crawled up on it
and began to develop his personal strength until he eventually matured to
become the frog that you see hopping around.

You are NEVER faced with an obstacle that is impossible to overcome.
Remember that!