Devotion 286 - Cracks

I don’t ever like to look at things with envy, no, I truly prefer imagination. 

That is how it is with the house down the street.  It’s a Victorian, I love Victorian.  It has one single spire making it look as if it could have been down my lane two hundred years ago instead of two decades ago.

Its windows are never shaded.  I peek in every morning wondering if life in the spire, in the Victorian is any different than my own.  It’s not envy, just imagination.  I notice the round driveway as if out of an estate.  It is brick instead of cement or tar.  There sits on that driveway an upholstered bench.  

Who puts an upholstered bench out in the sunshine I ponder?  The Victorian does.  It faces the house.  I wonder how the Victorian would feel if I sat there a spell and took in its beauty.  Next to the bench sits a huge flower pot filled with pink and white beauties.  The flower pot is solid; no puff of wind will cause it to travel.

I notice now more closely the bricks.  They have greens running through them.  Even the Victorian is not immune to weeds, but they are not weeds as I draw close.  No, the lovely pot has spread its beauty and flowers are blooming in between all the tight cracks of bricks.  There didn't

 seem to be room for air much less weeds or flowers but there they were squeezing out their beauty in spite of themselves.  They should have been run over, their bricks serve also as a driveway, but there they stood. 

I walked further now noticing cracks everywhere.  Some houses trim in between their sidewalks and their grass.  I have never understood this practice, but I noticed it now, looking for beauty. 

My mind felt as if it was grasping for breath between two bricks.  I didn’t see flowers or beauty just pressure, too many thoughts, problems, and just the ever ending list of tasks and chores.

Close to home I saw something flutter in one of the cracks.  My neighbors, yes they trim their grass back so the sidewalk can breathe.  There lay a bird, a baby now dead.  It had fallen from the nest,  then just as suddenly I saw its sibling struggling for life.  She didn’t seem injured.  Her mother frantically flew over seemingly pointing me to a nest I couldn’t see.  I ran home to grab my husband.  He understands wildlife far better than I.  We searched in vain for the nest.  I was confident the mama’s heart was breaking.  I promised her I would feed her baby.  The sidewalk was no place to leave a bird that couldn’t fly.

We came home and began our tasks to nourish this tiny bird.  Somehow with her fluttering wings so fluttered away the pressures of my thoughts.  I was on a mission.  We fed her, created a makeshift nest and watched her flourish.  It would only be a few days.  The children, everyone prayed for her. 

I asked God to bring beauty out of her sadness.  My son Beau cried sure this little weak creature had only hours to live.  But God answered, and then He answered again.  We had forbid our Ava from picking up the bird.  We told her just to talk sweetly to her afraid handling would prevent her from release back to the wild. 

Everyday brought strength, every day, answered prayer.  I found my Ava sitting on the fireplace next to the bird.  She sat talking with her.  My two birds, one left her nest in China, unable to care for herself and another, just down the street.  I noticed Ava had a book; I stood silently in the next room watching.  She was reading.  She doesn’t know the words, only the stories.  She was reading her Bible, reciting her Sunday School stories to her little companion.  Perhaps even now Ava knows where her strength is drawn from, especially when her mother flutters and frets. 

I had thought it was a bit of an inconvenience to smash bananas and find worms and crush mulberries, I realized I would have done it a thousand more times to witness this. 

You see I expect physical flowers to bloom in the cracks of my distress, but this work is for the garden of the soul.

The gardener comes in and shines light where there is the darkness of despair.  He breathes air where fear hopes to suffocate.

He waters where there is the drought of disbelieve and discouragement.

I see Him and He me.  We meet in the garden where encouragement blossoms.

 "You are the God who sees me”  Gen 16:13