my keeper

A week ago Matt trimmed our bushes in the front yard under a blue sky. As he worked on a tall holly, he discovered a bird’s nest. Quickly he got away from it in hopes the mother would not smell human. Mother birds will abandon a nest if she thinks there is danger.  As he showed us the nest from a distance, we realized that one of the baby birds had fallen out of the nest. The scrawny, featherless bird hung upside down snagged on a limb. His beak moved open and shut as if to cry for help.

Matt tried using a rake to “catch” the bird and push him up to the nest. We finally left him there hoping the mother would return and pick up the bird with her beak and put him back in the nest. 

Today we realized the abandoned dead bird was still hanging there in the holly bush. His brothers and sisters chirped in the nest right beside him awaiting their next meal. 

It’s really a horrifying picture of this dog-eat-dog world. Is there a more dreadful picture of frayed humanity (avianity) than a mother abandoning her child/ren?

If I’m honest, this speaks to a core fear I have of God. Often in the midst of confusion, trials or hardship, I wonder where He is. Has He abandoned me? Will He? When will He?

And yet we have these promises in His Word. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, ‘I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you.’”

It’s interesting to juxtapose this promise with the warning. Don’t be obsessed in getting more things, He says. Because when we are afraid, we grasp and grab and search about for guarantees. 

And so in the dark, as I honestly confess my fear, I reach for His hand. And it is there.