Rainbow-winged

"What you are is God's gift to you..."

Before one enters a portal new to him, he finds himself at a loss, afraid, and apprehensive as to what is in store for him beyond that door.

One thing is certain, however. By the time he decides to tread the path leading to that portal, what he has just made is the greatest decision he ever thought of -- the acceptance of self... the first step in achieving great goals.

Needless to say, how God has made everybody is already a gift because it is no ordinary thing -- but life.

Sure enough, if he does not take that first step, accepting himself as he really is, he is like an ugly green caterpillar, crawling on the branches of endless uncertainties.

But the caterpillar soon learns the golden message that the stepping stone to achieve great things lies in the threshold of accepting its real self.

That threshold alone spells nothing but courage.

And that same courage is put to real test -- the caterpillar has to lock itself behind the cocoon bars for a long time... a dark, warm, painful, lonely battle to reach the unreachable.

We, humans, share the same experience... the same struggle. Now, they are brave people in our midst who accept themselves as they are.

And are determined enough to move on from there.

For a long while, the cocooned caterpillar has to end what it has started. And taste the ripe fruits of its toils.

Yes, if there is a beginning, there is an end. But for those who understand its real meaning, the struggle has not died yet.

It only opens a new chapter in life.

As it came out slowly from the cocoon's door, the different creature was greeted with the stillness of the darkness -- the same darkness when it entered that same world.

But the caterpillar -- now, a rainbow-winged butterfly! -- knows, for sure, that the night is different from the night it was once before.

A new horizon is taking shape in the distance.

One wondered, before, what lies beyond that horizon. But the butterfly is certain that ahead of those far-fetched mountains is a new day that is about to unfold before the eyes of the world.

There is a new hope, new life that promises a new beginning.

Now, the butterfly has to flap its wings and see new role, new responsibilities that await him.

For us, humans, whose struggle in life is patterned after the cocooned caterpillar's, what we have achieved of late is only a beginning of another higher level of achievement.

Ours is a lifetime quest.

As the sunflowers await the butterflies, the world awaits these promising men and women.

This is where the truth from the saying comes back to heart.

"...what you become is your gift to God!"