A Robin's Gift

It's late in the morning.  There's not one bit of sunshine as I walk by the big picture window in the family room.  Movement catches my eye.  She flies into my view and it makes me stop.  She lights on a tree, fat from fall foraging.  It's the coldest day of winter so far, but here she sits...a beautiful, single robin.  My first thought, What is she doing here?  I guess the confusing warm weather earlier in the month has kept them around. 

She was my unexpected gift today...a reminder that my life is a cycle of seasons.  She sat there, blinking, turning her head.  I wanted a picture, but figured she'd be gone by the time I ran to the basement for the zoom lens that would be able to capture her.  I ran, I prayed she'd stay.  She did...she was my gift.  Seasons seem long while we are in them, but quickly change.  This season I sit in is a blink, it will change.  What can I learn while I'm here?  What does God want me to see?  To learn?

Nothing here below is profane

for those who know how to see. 

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

My answer is in my question...to Learn to See.

I thought this morning about a poem that hung once in my MIL's home.

"Cooking and cleaning can wait til tomorrow
For babies grow up, I've learned to my sorrow.
So, settle down cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."



It's time for her to leave, again.  Cold wind blows..."Help me load my car, Momma."  I cringe...it's freezing outside, but she wants my help.  The moments to her leaving are counting down.  She asks for help.  She still needs me so I go.  Our time with our children goes so fast.  They are a gift, a precious gift, that we are given only moments to raise, to teach, to train.  But does the gift end when they walk out the door to adulthood...I don't think so.  It changes.  We find new ways of normal, new ways of teaching and loving, new ways of opening the gift, unveiling another part of the gift. Because that's what He does for us...loves us unconditionally even when we fail, when we make stupid choices, when we hurt Him, when we don't believe.  He's always there when we ask.  So that's my job for now...to love, to show them the way to God's heart.

My tomorrow has come, my babies are all grown up...now I wait, wait for whatever is next.

Joy Dare

17.  A gift that says you are special. 

 18.  Sweet chatter from my 18 year old daughter sharing a glimpse of her world.

Something above, beside, below

19.  Blazing orange sunrise.

20.  Sitting beside my teen daughter at the movies.

21.  The woods spreading out below our house.

Three things about myself

22.  That I can create...bring joy to others through my gifts.

23.  That I have loved one man for 25+ years.

24. Curly, sometimes wild, hair!

25.  The robin that appeared on a cold, winter's day to remind me this season is temporary.

Our Hope

Little did I know how I would be tested when I said I was learning to let go a couple weeks ago.  My world has been turned upside down and letting go is all I can do.  I went out this morning with Frosty to find storm clouds on the horizon and thought about the storm brewing in my life and how fitting to see that view at that moment.  Like a distant storm, I don't know what's coming, I can't see how bad it will get. 

 

I headed back upstairs thinking it would be a dark and ugly day, but when I reached the apartment, there was a glow in the windows.  So, I opened the blinds to find the sun peaking through a hole in the clouds, and, there it was right in front of me. 

 

God's promise...

 

My hope. 

 

I'm in the heart of the city, surrounded by tall buildings, so I grabbed my camera went back outside to try to find the rainbow that I knew had to be there somewhere.  Well, it stopped raining and I couldn't find it, but I know it was there. 

 

Isn't that like God, we can't see Him, but we know He's there?  He will be there through our storms. I asked for strength to get through another day...and He provided.

Psalm 46:10  Be still and know that I am God.

I don't have to do anything...stop reacting, trying to control it, trying to fix it.  Just Be Still! 

 

He's our rainbow...

 

Our promise that all will be well.

Hebrews 11:1   Now faith is confidence in what we HOPE for and assurance about what we do not see.