Friday, October 9, 2015

That Impossible, Worrisome Cardinal

 

"Bang"...



10 seconds...



"Bang"...


10 seconds more.



"Bang."






This past spring into the summer, a female cardinal spent much of it's morning (and sometimes well into the afternoon) flying into the window.




We never were quite sure why she decided to spend much of her time doing such an obviously painful exercise; but every day she came.
Her male friend was always on a branch of a nearby shrub,
watching her constant confusing crashes.
  It often began at sunrise:
we were awakened by the thumping since she never stayed at one specific window, but would migrate to different windows around the house.



I felt so sorry for her.
She seemed so determined on this self-destructive path,
adamantly sticking to her chosen occupation of trying to accomplish something...
but nothing more than pain seemed likely to happen. 




I would wander over to the window and tell her to stop it, and she would while I stood close by in her view, but as soon as I walked away, her thumping would begin again.

"Crazy bird.  Don't you ever get hungry or thirsty or want to build a nest and have baby birds?
If you would just fly away.
 Why don't you do something with your life besides waste it banging your head against the glass." 

 I finally gave up and pursued my own course of actions for the day.





And then just like that, it hit me.

Isn't that what I do?




I've been reading Hebrews and I just came to chapter 11 this past week.

I've stopped to soak in the verses a bit more,
studying each person mentioned in the Hall of Faith.
It's funny because I like to read some verses from the Old Testament and some from the New Testament, and my reading in the Old just took me through the story of Moses and the escape from Egypt.
I also recently heard a sermon about Jacob that exposed how full of turmoil his life was:
the loss of three of the people he loved the most, all dying rather close together in time:
his wife, then his father, and then (it seemed) his favored son;
the plight of being a single parent to his sons Joseph and Benjamin,
the sorrow of losing a child; having a daughter raped; and having treacherous,murderous, shameful sons;
but he still trusted in God.

And then there was Enoch,
and Noah,
Abraham and Sarah.
People, ordinary in life's journey, sometimes experiencing hard trials,
but choosing to have faith in God despite everything that bumped into their way.

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Hebrews 11:6



We like to worry about things, we humans.
We worry about money and having enough.
We worry about out kids: their frustrations, their stages of life, their health, their futures.
We worry about our relatives, ourselves, our own futures, our own health.
We just worry. It seems to come easily.


My farmer and I are selling our farm, and we have moved to my in-laws farm.

It was the right thing to do, we know it for so many reasons and the peace God gave us about the move made it clearly the right path.

But our farm hasn't sold.
Not yet.
Months have gone by and the time slot that we expected things to work out is getting longer than we'd like.

Worry works it's way in like a drifting breeze of smoke,
just a touch at first, but steadily making it's presence hard to ignore.

We beat our heads against the glass of it, thinking, 
somehow,
that our worry will do something with our fears;
will demand a response other than pain and discontent.

God calls us to have faith,
to do right and glorify and thank Him
and trust that He will carry us through anything we may face



because His wings are a much safer place to be than our own.
 
 
I'm not sure if that cardinal is still greeting the morning windows at the old farm,
but it's been nice to get a few extra minutes of sleep since we left her.
 
I hope she finds whatever it is she's looking for,
for her sake and for her patient red mate.
 
 
 

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