Why a bird on an Advent post? Well, yes, there is the Twelve Days of Christmas song with seven swans a'swimming, but I did not actually think of that until I was uploading (downloading?) this picture. I would have liked to have posted a red cardinal...on a mailbox...surrounded by snow...snow that lasted just long enough for me to take a picture, but would be gone before I had to drive in it.
Sigh. I think I have just revealed that a good part of me would like to live in a Christmas card world.
A Christmas card world is not my world, and I suspect that it is not your world either. A friend was scheduled for surgery today, but the hospital power is frozen. That is the side of snow we don't see in those peaceful Christmas scenes. In my Internet mailbox are some devastating stories which I will not go into for fear that you will stop reading. And, the least of my worries, when I went to, at the very least, take a picture of a blue bird sitting atop of the bird feeder, the bird flew off. It did not just fly off, it flitted around the bushes and branches either hollering at me or warning its friends that a human being was on the premises.
Birds, for the past four or five years, have been used by God in my life to constantly remind me that He is alive and active in my life. This morning, I was more reminded of my own actions. As an old hymn states: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Still, when I wander, I do feel it. I noticed when I am wandering and when I am in touch with God. And, those times of being in touch are precious.
For those who have forgotten, or those just now joining in: I have been connecting my Advent posts with a small collection of letters from a missionary Frank Laubach. On May 14, 1930, Laubach wrote:
"Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making Him the object of my thought and the companion of my conversations, is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working. I cannot do it even half of a day -- not yet, but I believe I shall be doing it some day for the entire day. it is a matter of acquiring a new habit of thought. Now I like God's presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind -- as He does many times a day -- I feel as though I had deserted Him, and as thought I had lost something very precious in my life."
He doesn't desert me; I fly away, walk away, wander away, swim away from Him. Therefore, it is good that He brought birds into my life because I see them so often. Right now there is a woodpecker on the pine tree just outside of my window.
He doesn't only use birds; He also uses comments from friends. Yesterday a friend shared how she thought about being with God in the midst of lost papers and company coming and a thousand things to do. Later in the day when I could not find an important paper with addresses, my first thought...wait for it...no, it was not of being with God. Sigh. My first thought was, "I am so frustrated with myself! I am going to get on Facebook and tell my friends that I am so frustrated with myself." The NEXT thought was of her comment about being with God and this thought: "Why not tell Jesus you are so frustrated with yourself." So, I did. In that moment I felt so close to God. I felt loved.
I am a slow learner; however, later that night when the cold weather killed my old battery just as I was supposed to be taking the grandchildren home, I gave it over to God. After my husband temporarily revived the car, long enough to drive it with lights flickering, I again turned to the Lord as I prayed: "Immanuel, God with me" all the way home.
Psalm 42:5 -- "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
On this sixth day of Advent, I praise Him: my Hope, my Help, my God.
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