Learning How to Fly...Again

When my children were young I wanted so desperately to be a good mother. One devotional I read had a profound impact on the way I prepared my home and my heart after I read it, and it is still affecting me today after a chat with one of my daughters a few months ago.

It was based on the life of a bird called a Hornbill.

A hornbill is a bird that lives in the rainforests of Africa. She is not a beautiful bird, actually she is quite common looking, and some might even say she is ugly, but she has quickly become one of my favorites. She is accustomed to flying in the world she lives, partly for survival, partly as she searches for food.

When the time comes for her to start a family, she and her mate search for the perfect tree, a hollowed out trunk of a tree, just large enough to house she and her children, and she climbs in and begins the process of making a home.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

At the opening in the hollow tree, her mate begins the process of sealing her in with a mixture of mud and dung, that when combined act as a type of cement, keeping out predators. The wall that protects her has also imprisoned her. Before the mixture of mud and dung is dry a hole is made, just large enough for her mate to bring her food. She has allowed herself to become totally dependent upon him. She now turns her full attention to her rapidly approaching young.

As she waits for the eggs to hatch, she turns her beak upon herself and begins to remove feathers from herself, not all her feathers, but the very feathers that make it possible for her to fly. She does this because the space she is in is cramped, confined and the flight feathers are the stiffest and sharpest of all her feathers, and they would kill her young should their plumage be revealed. So to remove the threat of harm, she removes the possibility of flight, at least for now. She knows that some day, she will again fly, but for now she sacrifices, for the sake of her young.

When my children were young, and I read about this remarkable bird, I wept. I knew that I needed to follow her example, even as my peers told me I needed to have “me” time. I was a homeschool mom, who did not work outside of the home. I shielded and protected my children from any perceived threat. I did not just watch my children, I monitored them. I listened to the same music, watched the same movies, played the same video games, and read the same books. What they did, I did. I did not want something or someone to have greater sway in their life than myself or their father.

Always, always my goal was to point them back to the Father.

Did I do this perfectly?

Well of course I did not because I am an imperfect sinner. But I took my meager offering and gave it to the One Who is Perfect. I am trusting that He will perfect in them what He started through me.

Back to the conversation with my daughter a few months ago…

As many of you know my nest is quickly emptying, and I suppose my flight feathers have grown in, but it has been so long since I have flown that perhaps I have forgotten. My daughter gently reminded me that it is time to fly.

I have been loathe to stray from the nest that has been my home for so long…difficult for me to realize that my hatchlings are now ready to fly on their own. My daughter reminded me so gently though, that I have done my job, and now I must go…not backwards to an old life, but forward to a new life.

I like that.

It’s a new life for me…different yet similar…I am constantly seeking to DO what He has called me to DO. I am learning that I am not always right, and the biggest, most important thing I can DO for another person is to LOVE them, the next is to respond to them with humility. It took a while for me to learn those lessons…and it was the trials I endured that taught me those lessons. It was the seclusion in the nest that prepared my heart to receive the message.

I don’t know where you are in your nesting process, or even if you have a nest, but rest assured, that He is preparing your heart for YOUR circumstance. He is THAT personal a God, and He cares about you THAT much.

Praise Him in whatever circumstance you find yourself in…and soon? You will find yourself soaring on wings of peace that passes all understanding. That peace that is described in Philippians 4:7 a “tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace”.