What if we were like Mr Little-Dude aka the bird, somehow?
That bird gave me such a hard time, and I was only trying to help him!
That morning, I found him flying close to the ceiling, stuck in the upper part of the stairway. There was a glass window high up on the wall, and this little guy was bumping his head onto it, and falling to the floor. He would fly up to the window, hit his head, fall, then redo it over and over again. Baby bird could see outside clearly through the glass, but in fact, the only way for him to get there didn’t involve that window at all. It was a sealed window, that bird needed to get over his stubborn (low-key suicidal) plan. So I decided to help him out.
When he saw me approaching, dude totally freaked out! This little guy went crashing himself even harder against the glass. I tried all I could to appease him. Smh, you should have heard me talking to that bird, trying to catch him (and reason with him!) but all my gymnastic efforts and the motivation of my heart were useless. At that point, he was totally controlled by fear, acting the craziest to avoid me, yet still hurting his little self on repeat against the glass.
The first time I caught that bird on the floor, I’ll let you imagine how he kept battling his way out of my hands. As I was figuring out how to deal with that tiny body and these violent little wings, next thing I knew: my hands were just holding onto a bunch of tail feathers… Actually, all of them🫥. Little dude had already escaped and was crashing himself just everywhere on the wall at that point. That was painful to see, but at the same time, honestly I was getting annoyed too. That bird was insane! All I wanted was to help him, and I knew how to; but there we were, both struggling and feeling worse than we should have. (Of course I was fighting a bit of guilt over his tail too, but was it really my fault?)
Fear had a stronger grip on him than I had!
And okay, it was understandable. I mean, how could he know that I was not going to fry him, after all?Putting ourselves in his birdy shoes, fear is expected in such a situation, from a bird’s perspective… But on my side, as the one who could positively intervene and help, since I knew about the reality of the glass blocking the only way he could see, (although his ignorance of the glass, didn’t stop him from getting hurt big time by it), since I also knew the real way out, based on the context of the whole house which he couldn’t even imagine, and since my intentions were to give him the results he actually was after, it would have been easier for both of us, if he had just trusted me. For, from my perspective, his fear was absolutely unnecessary. But of course, he couldn’t know that…
But well, let me finish telling you the story. Eventually, our little friend crashed his head into the glass and fell on the ground one last time. He had to reach that point where he was too exhausted to do anything else than breathe, to let me pick him up. l secured him tight with both my hands that time, because he was about to get agitated again. Then I walked the hallway as fast as I could, I could feel his pulse under my fingers. Finally, he significantly calmed down when we got outdoors. And there, I released him.
My Teacher in life, doing it again…
Maybe it was that uneasy way I felt every time I watched (and heard) him cracking his head against the window. Or maybe that horrible view of his entire tail left in my hands, while all I wanted to do was to help him. Anyway, for some reason, long after he was gone, I was still thinking about it all…
How many times, thinking we are protecting ourselves, do we end up making decisions that cause us more harm? What do we do when we feel the hurtful impact of an invisible glass in our way? Do we keep hitting ourselves on it? Or do we let it teach us to maybe stop and rethink the whole situation? Do we know when to allow some helping hands to take over the case on our behalf? How well do we welcome God’s interventions when they don’t come in familiar ways, and cost us our own plans? Do we operate out of fear when our path changes suddenly, or do we embrace life’s turns positively with faith?
The parallelism of dimensions/realities makes sense to me. Therefore, just like I had the bigger picture over the little bird’s situation, and just like it would have eased the process if he knew to trust and cooperate with me, the same way I believe that God has the bigger picture over our situations, and we would gain in time and well-being by trusting and cooperating with Him.
From this, I also learned that trusting God doesn’t require my understanding. I still believe there will be some logic behind what He does, but His logic does not always have to make sense to me on the moment. God’s logic could be way beyond my limited perspective, just like the path that I took to get that bird out was unimaginable to his birdy mind. Better yet, it could have even seemed to the bird that I was carrying him to an opposite end than the one he desired, when I took the opposite direction from that window… until we reached outside.
The more I pondered on that bird’s attitude, the more convinced I am now that it’s better to make peace with the dead-ends in life. To learn to pause and reconsider, out of certain pains. Sometimes, it’s simply not a battle, but just not the way out intended for us. It takes a humble and open mindset to stop forcing through these unbreakable glasses and gracefully embrace a change. Anyone who prays and recommends their path to Jesus should be able to trust His hands through life’s flow. God sees the bigger picture. He knows all these contexts around us which we cannot perceive and always has our best interest at heart. He can unexpectedly send people, seasons, new turns, abrupt changes as disguised opportunities in our lives to be real blessings to us.
I pray we discern wisely. May fear, attachment to the familiar, clinging to the status quo, or sheer stubbornness never cause us to miss them.
All and all, I pray we trust God. #🐦
Amazing article! May God inspires you to write more.
In Him.
Thank you Rose-Laure❣️!