...is a verse that was on my mind almost exactly two years ago. I found it again today in the journal I kept. I also wrote about someting that was new then, but is as comforting as an old sweatshirt now; that year was when I received my own personal "icon" of inspiration: the cardinal in winter.
I found a copy of a letter in which I wrote about that bird. It seems right to tuck the letter in here. Winter turns chill again today, so it is feels like a good day for looking at old letters, finding warmth in reminiscing:
We as a family were going through a difficult time, difficult on every front, more so because all our "prayers" to God seemed to fall on deaf ears. Indeed He seemed to be going out of His way to deny His own character in our lives. Eventually, we came to a point of wondering if we would continue to love/serve/believe in such a God...but even as we considered such "blasphemy" (grin) we realized, with almost defiant irritation, that nothing could change our belief and love toward Him. That realization freed us to recognize that all along, He had been answering a prayer. We'd asked to be given a better understanding of unconditional love. But we didn't even realize we were "in school" for this; we didn't see it because we'd been expecting Him to reveal that unconditional love by giving it to us, and instead He made us see that He had planted unconditional love in our hearts toward Him. Of course it was the perfect way to teach the lesson...because in the end, we truly owned the love.
In the midst of this long and arduous lesson, I was driving along a rural highway on a cold February day. February in the Midwest is not particularly pretty. The trees are bare, and the ground is brown with a death that has been lying around for a while. But as I drove, something caught my eye on the side of the road. It was a brilliant red cardinal, just sitting quietly alone in the dead grass.
I felt God's spotlight on that bird and realized He was telling me something: sometimes, it is given to us to be that bird. The brilliance of a cardinal is no different whether it sits in verdant spring flowers or dead winter scrub, but the eye-catching power of its color is greater in the landscape of a grim brown field on a grey-sky winter day. If the bird does not require that it be allowed to mix with the other brilliant colors of spring; if it does not require that it be allowed to rearrange its winters as so many other birds will do, perching in more favorable climes, then it is a rather unusual bird. Only a few birds will forsake perpetual spring, where other colors compete. Only a few will comprehend the good of staying in a place where essential color can be projected most purely.
I was given a revelation of the witness of all purposeful, noble suffering through that vision of the bird.
Although new things "concern me" now, things that stretch my faith across new vistas, the cardinal in winter still haunts me, revives me, quiets me, and reminds me that I have come out on the other side of this one great searing lesson: no matter whether I must again go through that dark tunnel of growth that is for now just a shuddering memory, no matter whether once again I feel broken, neglected, forgotten and desperate...my life nonetheless will always have its unique profound meaning...as long as I am courageous enough to sit in my winter and see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment