Remembering

Today as I was washing dishes, I looked out the window in front of me that overlooks our deck in the back yard. I noticed a bird hopping around the porch and as I looked closer, I realized it was hopping around the tiniest, newborn bird I've ever seen. The baby bird was laying on our deck flapping it's barely there wings and chirping its' sad little cry for help. I went outside to get a better look. It must have fallen out of a nest nearby but I couldn't figure out from where. It looked like it could only be a few hours old and was in a serious struggle to survive. I was so torn because I've heard if you touch a baby bird its' mother will no longer have anything to do with it.. but it needed help! Thinking a little longer, I realized that I didn't even know how to care for a baby bird. So what good could I possibly do? (This story doesn't have a happy ending... sorry.) I went back inside hoping the mother bird would swoop in and save the day but she never came. I kept watching and slowly the baby bird stopped flapping it's wings and eventually stopped breathing. My heart was sad. :( It was a couple hours later when I was looking out the window again (it's not something I do all day, I promise!) when I thought about my sweet baby Hope. Thinking about Hope is something I do VERY often but it's most often the sweet, joyful moments that I replay. Today I remembered what it felt like to hold my baby in my arms as she breathed her last breath. Yet still, mingled in with the sadness I felt, all I could think was how grateful I am that God gave me that moment. I'm not sure what I would have felt if someone else had been holding her at that time or if she just been laying in the bassinet. Even in that moment God was caring for me. He is so constant. With all my ups and downs, emotions and questions, He is steady, sure, faithful and secure. I cannot keep it to myself! How selfish would I be if I did not share with those who are hurting that there is hope? God alone is enough to sustain even through the toughest of heartaches. 

So... God can use even the tiniest of birds to take my heart on a journey that leads me straight to Him. 

Psalm 139:1-18

You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 

You know when I sit and when I rise; 

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

 

You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways. 

 

Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely. 

 

You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 

    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

 

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

 

even there your hand will guide me, 

    your right hand will hold me fast.

 

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; 

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful, 

    I know that full well.

 

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 

 

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

 

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! 

    How vast is the sum of them!

 

Were I to count them, 

    they would outnumber the grains of sand —

    when I awake, I am still with you.