Restraints to Soar

One windy spring day,
I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites.
Multicolored creations of varying shapes
and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing.
As the strong winds gusted against the kites,
a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind,
they arose against it to achieve great heights.
They shook and pulled,
but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow,
facing upward and against the wind.
As the kites struggled and trembled against the string,
they seemed to say:"Let me go! Let me go!
I want to be free!" They soared beautifully
even as they fought the restriction of the string.
Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose.
"Free at last." it seemed to say. "Free to fly with the wind."
Yet freedom from restraint
simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze.
It fluttered ungracefully to the ground
and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush.
"Free at last" free to lie powerless in the dirt,
to be blown helplessly along the ground,
and to lodge lifeless against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are.
The Heaven gives us adversity and restrictions,
rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength.
Restraint is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition.
Some of us tug at the rules so hard that
we never soar to reach the heights we might have obtained.
Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that
some of the restraints that
we may chafe under are actually the steadying force
that helps us ascend and achieve.