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The Chorus of You-Can-Do-Its

I’ve become quite the bird-watcher since moving from the concrete of North Texas to the lush rolling hills of middle Tennessee.

I live in a little row of condos that faces a line of parking spots, a driveway, a chain-link fence, and a row of privacy trees. Nothing fancy, but I’m convinced this row of privacy trees is where the most beautiful blue jays and red robins in the city have decided to call home. I’ve never heard such a choir of birds in my life.

I’ve also never had a front porch that faces east—or a front porch, for that matter. I’ve never woken up in Texas and gone outside in the middle of the summer to find a cool breeze greeting me with hellos. Nashville might as well be northern Michigan. Every day, I go to my front porch to watch the sun rise and feel the crisp breeze and be with my birds.

I wish I could put an ID system together so I could tell the birds apart, because I have theories. Watch birds long enough and you’ll have theories too.

The birds like my front yard the best. I think this is because we don’t keep up with proper lawn care so we have a premium selection of worms lurking beneath our deep sea of grass. The birds come to our tiny sliver of yard each morning and get their food the same way each time.

They hop twice. Then they look down and bob their heads twice, not yet touching the earth. Then they turn twenty-five degrees to their right and in one fatal swoop, they bob their heads down into the muddy earth and come back up with a long, wriggly, muddy worm. Then they fly away and eat it in the tree. It’s like clockwork. Every time it’s double hop, double bob, twenty-five-degree turn, and worm victory.

Today, the baby birds were given the boot and forced to come look for worms alone. That’s my theory. They are little and cute and perky. And they are lost. They are actually quite terrible at procuring food. They are not nearly as efficient as their elders. They do three hops instead of two, and way too many head bobs to keep track of. Some of them look frozen. Like they need someone to give them a little nudge and remind them to keep breathing.

They are making too much noise to be effective. They are talking to each other and they aren’t supposed to be. And I know their mamas are in the trees watching them and giving them guidance, but I just kind of have the urge to chime in too.

“Baby birds! Shhhhh. You are giving the worms way too much warning.”

“Shhhhh. You have to surprise them like your mamas do.”

I lean in. As if the birds understand human-pajama-girl language. I whisper.

“That’s it! Tiptoe! You’re doing it, sweet little bird!”

“Now, ATTACK! ATTACK! BOB YOUR HEAD. BE RUTHLESS.”

I sigh and shake my head.

“It’s okay. We can try again tomorrow. You will get one.”

They fly back to their trees with empty beaks. And I feel sad for them. Disappointed for their failure. But a few minutes later, the baby birds fly back down and try all over again. And fail all over again. I feel sad for them all over again. The cycle repeats itself several times as I sit on the porch, trying to read. Trying to pray.

Somewhere along the way, in the middle of feeling sad for the baby birds, I realize that the choir of birds chirping and whistling is louder than normal. And it’s constant. Beautiful songs, echoing relentlessly as the baby birds come and totally botch their assignments to find worms.

Sure, they are failing, but they are doing so in the midst of a sea of beautiful voices. And I like to think those voices are their mamas and daddies, bird cousins and pigeon friends, cheering them on with you-can-do-its! as they fail miserably at their first attempts to search for sustenance.

I am such a creepy bird lady now, audibly cheering on baby birds in my front yard. Crying happy tears because I theorize that their families are cheering them on too. What must the neighbors think?

Oh, the gift of the chorus that cheers us on with you-can-do-its when we are out by ourselves, searching for life. Searching for promised lands. Searching for what lies deep beneath the surface, unseen to the naked eye. Searching. Wandering.

Sometimes it’s family and friends who know you well. Other times it’s the strange bird lady unaware of any of your story, except the part that currently matters the most, the moment at hand. Further ahead on their own journeys, they are able to become anchors of safety who keep the nest together in your absence, who keep the lifelines afloat on your behalf. The person from the outside willing to cheer you on as you go searching, willing to offer their lifelines of hope. And the ones from within your own family, willing to watch you crash and burn a few times and come back to the nest empty-handed, and still sing out to you,

“We believe in you.”

“You will figure it out.”

“And when you bring back your first worm we are gonna have a huge party!”

The truth is, sometimes I don’t want the chorus there cheering me on. I don’t want a group of cheerleaders to come cheer me on as I come up empty-handed. Uncertain of what my next move will be, uncertain if I can keep trying, uncertain whether I have what it takes to find life, uncertain if I was ever good enough to be a bird in the first place. I don’t want people to see me fail.

There are so many moments when I just want them to all go away. Them, with their put-together lives and well-established checking accounts and dreams seemingly coming true. Just go away with your encouragement already! I am flailing out here. Digging for worms in the mud. Just let me do it in pathetic privacy please, because maybe I wasn’t cut out for this whole thing in the first place. Maybe I should just go back home. And I don’t want you to see me turn around and walk the other way, back to the nest, empty-handed. It’s the ultimate walk of shame.

But that chorus that stands in unity, piping their voices out over me, knows something that I don’t.

Solo flights, while ultimately taken alone, are never successful without a choir of voices watching from the rafters, whispering and yelling, “YOU CAN DO IT,” holding their breath and waiting in angst with you as you slowly, painfully, and brokenly make your way to the other side.

That’s why the chorus is in it for the long haul—the choir of voices saying you can do it.

It’s hard to turn around and walk back to where you came from when there is a choir cheering you on to new life. Because they are there watching, holding their breath, nudging you on, waiting, waiting, faithfully waiting with you. Knowing there is another side. Believing you will reach it. Believing for you when you can’t. They watch with loving and gracious eyes as you flail about, because they, too, have fallen, flailed, and found new life on the other side. They refuse to let you hide and be invisible. They do not relegate themselves to the easiest parts of your story, the before and after, but they sit and keep watch in the messy middle. Refusing to do anything but sing over you as you bob around looking for worms—they are your choir. And because of this, you slowly adopt their rhythms and mantras of grace and faith. You believe because they have believed over you. Perhaps you might make it after all. The choir of voices sings over you a song so rich in faith and perseverance and presence that you get the feeling they might be in it for the long haul. They might just sing over you the entire time you are wandering. Wandering. Wandering.

Where would I be without my choir?

My mom, Jackie, Krista, Missy, Aubrey, Becca, Lauren, Amy, Betsy, Melissa, Sarah, Kristen, Claire?

How would I make it?

I wouldn’t.

So I sit on my front porch, morning after morning, unashamed to be the other voice calling out to the birds, telling them they can do it! And they remind me why it’s important to let a choir of people sing over me while I flounder too. Honestly, it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved. Me talking to birds, and friends singing and cheering me on while I crash and burn and hang out in lonely, barren wilderness for long stretches of time. It’s uncomfortable. But getting into someone’s story—being committed to wait and wait and wait and cheer them on with whispers and prayers and screams while they make their way flying solo, crossing from weariness to wilderness to water holes to promised lands—always is.

Give me the choir. I want them singing behind me, even the creepy bird lady. Without the choir, it’s way too easy to turn around and go back to where I came from. Or set up camp in the in-between. But my choir says no. They cheer me on. They annoy me with their constant presence. They wait in the shadows with faith more sturdy than mine. And they sing their songs, balms of grace, over my journey.

And sometimes, for me, the choir needs to know a reeeeaaaally long song and come prepared with a few cases of water. But that’s okay. Good choirs are ready for that. Maybe that’s why Handel wrote Messiah. It’s just long enough for a choir to sing over someone trying to find their way out of the wilderness. Trying to find worms. Taking baby steps into new life.

Let the choir sing over you. Don’t turn their voices away. Let them sing.

Let their “He shall reigns” carry you.