Rest

I flew into the rest of my weekend after I wrote my last post. I literally flew off of my longboard, onto the hard pavement, hitting first my knee, followed by a slide on my right side. The flying on the longboard stands out less against the memory of falling and sliding. I stood up quickly, annoyed I skinned my left tricep very much, and then I looked at my knee. I shudder at the picture that comes up in my mind. 

Shane was still at work, that was why I decided, after accomplishing my list of things to do, that I would ride my longboard. It was the first time I had gotten it out since last summer, and some pride in me said that I could indeed ride it to Rin’s house and back before Shane got home before our date. I had not considered the hill before her home, and there I met the pavement with a leap and a tumble. It was fortunately on this hill where a neighbors house is situated and this neighbor happened to be sitting on her porch with a biker who had been peddling by and took a break. So two angels, one a nurse, and the other ready and willing to take orders and help out, happened to be right on the scene and knew what to do till Shane’s dad arrived to drive me to the hospital.

So now, here I am, my right leg wrapped and velcroed into a brace propped up on a camp stool while I sit in a camp chair on our back porch. 

I can tell you exactly what got me into this situation, but it is still aggravating to think of how hurt my knee is. I shouldn’t bend it for two weeks due to the huge gash full of seven stitches and twenty-seven staples. Do you know how hard it is for me to sit still? Alas, I can count it a blessing it wasn’t worse. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to sit still. As Rin put it, there must be some reason God wanted you to rest. 

Her comment made me look into verses about rest, because I have been doing a lot of that. I enjoy doing it on my back porch the most because I see our Orchard Oriole families, we have two, the yellow warblers, hummingbirds, cat birds, mocking birds, bluejays, countless red wing black birds and robins, and of course my little phoebe whose nest is just over my shoulder. It really has been a joy to just observe God’s nature, and on a morning like this morning where I was calling in a gobbler, interact with it despite my limitations. 

This certain, classic Psalm stood out to me though, because of the non-passive word, make.  He makes me lie down in green pastures. Why would God make me lie down when I have so much to do and I have this break before teaching summer workshops? Though I believe in signs, I am not sure a very obvious one is about to literally be written in the sky answering my question as to why right now must I rest. I just have to sit, be patient, and keep my eyes open and alert like I do when looking for all my different birds. 

Psalm 23:2-3 “He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.”

Ironic I would’ve just ordered the book, and got about the day before my accident, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense” by Dr James Dobson. Again, I am not unaware of what got me into this situation, and I am thankful it isn’t worse, but the why right now at the beginning of my summer has echoed in my head. This book draws stories and examples from far worse accidents that have happened in christians lives, and dares to ask why. It doesn’t skim over the question of, “Why, God?” with verses like Romans 8:28 where it says all things work together for good. Dr James Dobson really pulls out good examples of people in the Bible with big why’s, and verses besides Romans 8:28. 

One verse the book brought up felt appropriate to my injury, as our nurse neighbor, gingerly, yet assertively held my knee together with a motherly touch. Then again, when my mom drove down on Monday and kept me company and helped around the house while I was confined mainly to the couch. 

Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you: and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” 

As I continue to watch the birds and finish some lyric videos for mu mom’s vacation Bible school, I actually want to leave some pictures of a bird that I can’t seem to identify. So for all you bird watchers out there, help me out, this grey bird has no other markings besides a light belly and red skin around its eye and a curved bill. I am in western Pennsylvania, so a curved bill thrasher doesn’t make sense, but that is what it reminds me of.

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As A Bird Flaps It’s Wings

Today is a fragile one, one where the right word, the right song brings trembling hands and a tear. Alas, I am one for routine, after bird watching and trying out my new camera taking shots of fluttering wings early in the morning, I went into my Friday routine. This includes a Tai Chi class, then stopping at the grocery store for lunch meat for the fresh bagels I get at my final stop at our local bakery where they had birthday cake biscotti’s today. 

On the way to the gym for the Tai Chi class, I got some sweet texts from loving aunts, and coupled with the new album I was singing out loud, the tears came. I pulled it together for the Tai Chi class, but during the morning energy flow, the moves we did that reflected bird movements again made my eyes glassy. It just made my morning go full circle, the peaceful bird watching, the reading about Abraham and Isaac and the faithful in Hebrews, and with the praise songs from the new Rend Collective album I have been enjoying, I just felt I was being reminded there are blessings, always blessings, all around. 

Blessings in our lives are sometimes like birds. We can hear their song, but we can’t always see them. It can be frustrating, straining your eyes, looking at a tree, knowing there is a bird chirping a melodic song in there somewhere, but we just can’t see, so we stop looking. Other times, birds come flitting into view, bright and beautiful, we see it, but it flies off before we are done looking. In both cases, we almost resent the fact that we didn’t see the bird more or closer; we over look the little bit of blessing we did receive. 

The ever so hard to get clearly Orchard Oriole

Sometimes we forget, if we really want to see that rare bird, sometimes we have to sit still, be patient and wait. Even then, if we don’t have the right tools, like a lens that can zoom or binoculars, we still aren’t going to see it clearly. A bird isn’t going to just land in your lap because you want it to.

I have been especially enjoying capturing shots of dozens of types of birds this spring because I got a 75-300 mm lens this spring. Finally yesterday, I attached it to my new body I also got, but only charged for the first time yesterday. So, with my Canon EOS 80D and new zoom lens, I was capturing some really good pictures of birds. In this post, I will just be including photos I got today and last night, but with that same lens and older body, I got some okay photos of even more types of birds. 

As I mentioned before, I have really been enjoying the new Rend Collective album, so I couldn’t end this post with out including a song that really applies to today. There are so many little blessings flying and flitting around me, I can’t deny that life is beautiful and up from the ash, up fro the dust, God can recreate us and I will rejoice in the sunshine and the sorrow, and oh, my soul can rejoice. 

 

Look at the Birds of the Air

There are just things I could not live with out. Bird chirps and tweets waking me up, bright yellow coltsfoot sprouting up from the gravel filled burms, horses tails gently tossing about in the breeze. It has been a blessing to have these things fill my spring days. I have to look at each thing sometimes and deliberately say, “That is a blessing.”

Spring just is an especially hard season for myself, despite all the promise every new start represents. From crisp green blades of grass growing, to birds carrying twigs to their nests, sometimes it can seem like the world is moving on, and it can feel like I am not. Or sometimes worse, I feel like, if I move on like the little birds building a new nest, that I am leaving behind a part of me, and I don’t want to.

I lost my son in the spring time, and most recently, Shane and I lost our dear friend. Here we are, in a most promising part of the year, visuals of new beginnings all around, but the gash left by loss is so painful. Part of me doesn’t desire moving on, fearing the distance that will surely come, the days that will stack up between the time of knowing the ones I loved and have lost and the present. I don’t want it to be almost four weeks, then five, then six, then a year since Scott was here.

But we cannot live in winter for forever. Spring must come. With it comes beautiful things, and even though those beautiful things can be hard to look at, they are a blessing. They are a reminder that beauty can come from the dirt and mud and once frozen soil.

Revelation 21:5 “And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” and He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”

So I have been watching the birds. It has been a delight. We live in a place surrounded by water and woods, so to our feeder comes a fun variety of winged creatures. I am most excited by our little Eastern Wood Pewee couple I was able to identify, though they look like other flycatchers, their song set them apart. The little couple decided to build a nest on our home, and Shane was going to knock it down thinking it was just some sort of swallow, but I convinced him otherwise since Mr and Mrs Pewee are in the flycatcher family.

A cardinal couple has been flitting around our porch very often as well. They sit on our cars and chirp as they bounce from side mirror to ground and back again. I knew their nest had to be nearby, and after observing Mrs Red, I found her nest indeed was close. Right in the bush by our stairs to our porch. She has recently started sitting on her three little speckled eggs.

Matthew 6:26  “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Of course, it may seem overly cliche to bring up Jesus talking about the birds, or to put a few lines from the classic hymn “His Eye is On the Sparrow”, but how beautifully true it all is. Here we are, my husband and I and those who loved Scott, in the midst of grief, and God is not overlooking it. If he can supply little Mr and Mrs Pewee and Mr and Mrs Red a spot for their nests, then how much more will he supply for us if we just trust.

Just like he can turn around and make new things from the frozen, colorless mud winter left, he can make our colorless, sad days new. The days will come, we can’t stop that, but what we can do is trust the God of the universe to take care of our days. We can keep our eyes open for blessings and reasons to be thankful for each new day. He knows our pain and sorrows, He knows our relief and joys. Here it is, if His eye is on the sparrow, then you’ve got to know, His eye is on you!