There’s a bird’s nest just outside my house filled with a family of chicks. I love to watch what’s going on in the life of my bird family. Little bald babies make little peep peep noises. The mama bird works tirelessly, flitting back and forth, always taking care of her puny chicks who are smashed together in their gross nest caked with droppings. She’s amazing. As she’s giving her little ones what they need, day by day the chicks grow less helpless, less scrawny, less ugly. They are slowly becoming strong and beautiful.
As I was watching this real-life nature program the other day and musing on the stillness of a California evening in the country, I realized that often I feel like one of those baby birds. All scrawny and weak and featherless and pathetic, unable to get my own nourishment, mouth open wide, crying for something, anything. There I am, sitting in shambles, poop everywhere, unable to fly, crying out for something to get me through—to move me beyond this state of helplessness. Jesus has been to me like that mama bird: taking care of me, feeding me tirelessly while I’m sitting scared and stuck. Day by day he helps me to grow shiny feathers until I become nourished by truth and ready to fly.
Real life has proven strange. There has been tragedy and comedy, defeat and victory. I’m pretty sure it’s not what I signed up for, pretty sure I got someone else’s lot. But after pinching myself nice and hard, I am assured that this is indeed my life. No, my soul is not trapped in the body of another. This is my actual body. This is my actual life. So what shall I do? I shall look up, open my mouth, and allow my All Sufficient One to feed my soul. Looking to the Source, I shall rejoice with laughing and mourn with weeping. I shall give from my emptiness; I shall receive the offer of abundance. And I shall keep right on going, moving ahead in life, taking steps of faith, and keeping my eyes on the One who is invisible—who has, in his generosity and continuous provision like that mama bird, taught me to laugh without fear of the future.