Schultz Party of Four

Tonight my sweet friend called me exclaiming "We have a chick! The eggs are hatching!" We hurried over with the girls and all stood around the 4-H incubator in wonder of the hatching of a baby chick - with several other little squeeking siblings attempting the same feat.
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There was this intense desire we all had to help the little chick break free of its egg and experience life. But my friend's children explained to the girls (and me) that if you help the chick you could harm it, and worse, it won't have the strength-building experience of breaking free that will be necessary for its ability to survive outside of the egg. The analogies to life started to sneak into my mind. Adversity can strengthen us,etc.
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But then I thought about the experience my own children had coming into the world. And while sitting on an egg and letting them do all the 'painful' 'hard' work to be born themselves sounds somewhat appealing in light of ... well, you know... I realized I would never have been able to sit and watch them struggle for hours on end helplessly, crying out in pain and struggle, without being able to reach out and break that last piece of shell off for them. I'm glad I got to help them out with the whole birthing process. Mostly because I'm a control freak, as if I had any control at that moment...ha.