A few days ago my 12 yo daughter and I were picking mulberries on our mulberry tree. I look forward to it every year. As I was on my little black step stool, shaking the mulberries into a big blue tarp so we could make mulberry muffins, smoothies, and other yummy things, I noticed a beautiful mother dove/pigeon. She had built a nest on one of our mulberry tree branches. She had such unique markings. The baby blue color around her eyes was breathtaking. She wasn’t startled in the least by me shaking the limb her nest was on. She had a fierce determination to protect her eggs at all costs. Over the span of 3 days, we began to get attached to this little beauty. My daughter even named her “Lady Guinevere.” At one point our eyes connected and I just related to her so much. My mother’s heart understood her. I know she trusted us. Every day when we would go and pick more mulberries, we would talk to her and check on her. On one particular morning, as I was reaching up to grab some mulberries, I was shocked to see that Lady G’s nest was mauled and empty. It looked like some animal came in the middle of the night and sabotaged everything. I looked down on the ground and there was part of her wing laying on the ground. I don’t know why it affected me so much, but I began to cry. My daughter was sad too, but she was a little taken back as to why I would cry over it because we’ve had many animals die in our yard and it didn’t affect me as much as this did. It wasn’t necessarily a cry of sadness of losing her, although I was devastated that I wasn’t able to protect her and help her. But it was deeper than that. Rare compassion came over me. Maybe it was because I saw the same thing in that mother bird’s eyes that I see in the single and widowed mothers and fathers that I have met over the years. Their main goal is to try to protect and provide for their little ones at all costs but many are getting sabotaged and eaten alive. They are no longer flying, they have given up. And their children are suffering from it. I was grieving for them and their children. I was mad at the animal that would kill a mother bird and eat her eggs. But ultimately I was angry at all the evil in this world and the innocent children that have to suffer because of it.
But thankfully there is hope. No matter our story, we have a perfect nest that we and our children can run to and hide in that offers protection and provision that nothing in this world can offer… with a blanket of soft feathers to embrace us and unattackable wings to hide us from the evil that is trying to destroy us. I don’t know about you, but I am choosing to let my God fight my battles because he will always win.
“Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Ps 91:3-4
