Letting My Butterfly Struggle

I've definitely felt the parenting change my life has taken since Victoria went into 6th grade. Remember that book (horrible book BTW) "Nothings Fair In 5th Grade"? Well, I feel it should be 6th instead. This has been a tough tough year for her socially. Having come to the public school just a year and a half ago, at times like this I am so tempted to take her out and shield her from this part of growing up. Homeschooling again tempts me in these moments. Every time God convicts me to hold on, work through it, and let Him do what He needs to in her little life. It is so hard sometimes though!
Victoria is only the second child in her class with straight A's. She performs very well scholastically as she always has. She is self motivated and tells me she has to bring her grade up when she gets B+ on her homework. LOL! This gives me a chuckle as I was not an academic kid and would have been so happy with a B+. I love her spirit of focus and desire when it comes to her grades. She wants to be a Veterinarian and Rick and I are running with that goal as it will help her focus through the tough years ahead. Even if she changes her mind later, she will have the knowledge under her belt and her freedom in direction will be wonderfully open to her. If she does no further schooling and God gives her a husband and family, it still will only help her. Having the goal helps navigate the social roller coasters as well through the Jr. High and High School years to come.
Victoria has been debating for months as to whether she wanted to do basketball this year. She is not very athletic but she just loves basketball. She loved when they played out at recess or PE. She got teased however because she has always been uncoordinated. She never crawled as a baby and her coordination has shown it ever since. Her run is a little funny and her ability to run and bounce the ball is very challenging. But, she loves it. Because of the teasing she was so uncertain as to whether she would try out or not. I was encouraging her because she really needs the exercise at this time in her life. I also encouraged her to do what she loved no matter what people said or teased her about.
This one gal in the class in particular is very hard on Victoria. She teases her for being smart, and for anything else she can come up with. She has always been obviously jealous of Victoria and singles her out for criticism because of it. She recently got in trouble for not keeping her own grades up so Victoria's focus in school work is always a topic of reticule from this girl. As a "leader of the pack" of sorts, some of the girls will be nice to Victoria but mean to her when this girl is in the mix. I encouraged her to make all new friends with girls who were nice to her no matter what, nice to others all together, and focused in their school goals. She has done that but this little circle still comes around now and then and this gal always has something waiting for Victoria to tear her down.
She decided at the last minute to go for the basketball. I was excited for her. For two days the practice was challenging but fun for her. Then, a bunch of new girls decided to join and guess who was in the mix. Yep. Victoria has hard time being able to make the basket from the throw line as well and the coach has them keep shooting till them make it. Right now, she has to move up closer to get her shot. She has very little upper body strength. That's what you get when you are a gal who loves to read (and this is why we were excited for her doing this). The days before this had been tough but not discouraging. Now, this gal started laughing at her from back in the line. The distraction of that made it harder and harder to make the shot. She came home without wanting to do practice yesterday because of this and soreness in her feet. She didn't have great shoes either.
As she told me about this it was just so hard for me! Last week she had a tough week because a friend who was boy was all of a sudden being very mean to her, telling her to "shut up!" and teasing her for "sucking at basket ball". She and this boy had been friends and she had a crush on him for a while so this just crushed her. I wanted to go beat him up myself or at least demand what his problem was. That is how I felt yesterday as well. How dare this gal haggle my child over and over! I was upset and Victoria thought I was mad at her but I tried to explain that I was not but was dealing with frustration over this girl. I tried to encourage her not to let these awful kids dictate what she can and can not do. We also went shopping last night for better athletic type shoes so her feet would have more support.
In the mean time I just battle wanting to rescue her. Then I remember something my dad taught me. He use to tell me the story of the butterfly:

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours
as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn't’t go further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and
snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.
The butterfly emerged easily but
it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch it,
expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge
and expand enough to support the body,
Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around.
It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness
and haste did not understand:
The restricting cocoon and the struggle
required by the butterfly to get through the opening
was a way of forcing the fluid from the body
into the wings so that it would be ready
for flight once that was achieved.
Sometimes struggles are exactly
what we need in our lives.
Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.
We will not be as strong as we could have been
and we would never fly.
So have a nice day and struggle a little and teach well.

That feeling of desperately wanting to help that butterfly and hating that she has to struggle, be knocked about and all of this, is one of the hardest things I've ever had to feel. God keeps tugging on me though saying "nope, nope...don't try to fix this! Encourage her, inspire her, remind her of the treasure she is to me, but DON'T RESCUE HER!" My pain now and her struggle her and now, are determining her strength for her whole future. If I want her to fly and soar, I have to watch painfully and keep my hands off. It's so not easy. I really sense that God is building in her what she needs right now and I am even more scared to death to get in the way of that process.
So, I'm burdened to focus on getting active with her. To help her practice at home, to get out there and run a bit with her. To help her do exercises to build body strength. To support her in her dream to do something she loves.
If all I can do is cheer and run along side, then I'll do it. The rest I have to leave up to God.
Sometimes it's more selfish to guard them, and more loving to let them struggle.

BTW- Have you ever noticed the beautiful gold beading on a butterfly chrysalis? I learned last year from Emma's second grade teacher (who is a butterfly expert and wrote lovely children's book!) that if you mess with these gold beads at all the butterfly will come out black and white! It will not have the beautiful colorful array we see on them. Isn't that amazing? They don't really know why it's there but I think it's to remind us to keep our hands off! What's going on inside is GOLDEN!