I was reading the paper at the weekend, it was a copy from a few days before, but that’s pretty recent for me!  I stopped reading the paper regularly a couple of years ago when I realised what a negative effect it was having on me.

This copy was no different to any other.  Tales of doom and gloom, economic crisis and financial ruin, surrounded by offers of ‘easy to get, guaranteed for all’ loans and credit cards.  Countless stories of family members murdering each other, old ladies mugged and left for dead, children who’s innocence had been betrayed by someone they should have been able to trust.

Then I came upon a story which made me smile; and think.  It was about a troop of over a hundred caterpillars in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, who were following an almost invisible, single silk thread across the road, into the bush, where they would separate and literally go forth and multiply!

This got me thinking not only about the wonders of nature but also about our children.  As parents we lay the silk thread for our children, in the hope that they will follow it long enough to get them safely across the road and into the bush.  It’s not always easy to watch as they find their own way; sometimes incredibly frustrating as they make choices we know with the wisdom of age not to be the best ones.  It takes practice to be able to advise without dictating and to resist the urge to say ‘I told you so!’ when we are proved right.

As parents however, we are blessed with the foresight to see our children as they truly are and to love them because of it and in some cases in spite of it!  All we can do is our best and hope that when the time comes, our thread will be true enough and the lessons we have taught them strong enough, to guide them through the dangers and temptations of adolescence and into adulthood, where we hope they will emerge as the beautiful butterflies we know they are capable of becoming.