We have baby robins! Click here if you missed the story and pictures a few weeks ago about Mama Robin re-building her nest in our drain pipe. Oh my goodness, these littles are so precious. We keep a set of binoculars by the kitchen window so we can observe them up close.
I saw the first bobble head a couple of days ago and then today, while mama was out of the nest, one baby persistently used all her strength to lift her head up out of the nest, mouth wide open, hoping something would fall in. (Photo above and video link
below.)
Trust and provision are our lessons today from this newborn robin. She has been thrust from the safety and comfort of what she had previously known, and found herself in a world full of uncertainty and newness.
She has no idea what lays in store for her and instinctively will take things moment by moment. (POW, did you catch that? Being present is a natural instinct that some of us, myself included, stray too far from.)
Unapologetically, Baby Robin makes her needs known and waits expectantly for them to be filled. Her mama has to leave the nest at times, and though Baby will have periods of wondering where Mama Robin is and when will she return, it doesn’t mean she has been abandoned. Quite the opposite.
Especially in her absence, Mama Robin is demonstrating her love for her babies. She leaves them to work in conjunction with Papa Robin to gather the provision needed to meet all of Baby Robin’s needs. So even when she’s not there, Mama Robin is ever present, ever watchful and totally committed to her babies’ wellbeing.
When we are walking through unknown circumstances, and it seems like we are all alone, not quite sure how we’re going to get our needs met, we can trust that our good plan is already unfolding. Everything we need is going to be provided. We can trust in that encompassing care and let ourselves relax.
I don’t know what you’re walking through, but this is a great reminder to me as we dive deeper into the building process. I am definitely not in charge. I can worry about every detail falling into the right place, or I can
trust that God sees the bigger picture and is working all things for my good.
To back up my profession of trust, I wrote a few things down this morning on a small piece of paper, folded it up and dropped it in my
God box. (Read more about that practice in my book, Finding the Gift: Daily Meditations for Mindfulness, the entry for October 24, God Box). As I sit in a posture of ease and surrender, I am reminding myself that I am Baby Robin, expectantly waiting for timely provision, and I don't need to nurse my doubts and fears.
Regarding the bird
family hatching outside my kitchen window, I have a "birds-eye view." I know Mama Robin is going to come and go, come and go, but that she is 110% there for her babies. We can apply that same higher perspective to each of our situations. Baby Robins, all of us!
This next section is for those of you who struggle to believe you really are being cared for...
I purposely keep my writing mostly non-religious for reasons I’m happy to
discuss with you one on one. Seriously, email me! But as I said, in Finding the Gift on March 15 entitled Someone’s Got My Back, I choose to believe God has my back. (And yours, too.) If you don’t believe in God, or you tried before, but had a bad experience with church and man, maybe it's time to try again? Start small.
Embark on an experiment to believe God has your back. Consider imagining that you are like Baby Robin, and that there is a loving, nurturing, all-providing God taking care of you right now, making sure all your needs are met, even in the absence of tangible proof in this moment. How great does that feel?
If Baby Robin is special enough to get all her needs met, how much more special are you? How much more can you trust that the necessary provisions have been made to meet all your basic needs, sprinkled with unexpected gifts also? Does it feel good to imagine this might be
true? Baby steps.
Many years ago I did a similar make-believe experiment to repair a broken idea of God and cultivate a personal relationship with who I chose to believe God to be. Over time, I eliminated all the residual
religious, man-made junk that previously had led to twenty years of hating God and anything that smelled like religion.
I went from believing that God had never been there for me, to seeing how God had always
been there for me. I love sharing my story with anyone who has suffered at the hands of well-meaning religious people. If I’m speaking to you, and you’ve wanted to get past the hurt and confusion, please send me an email. If I can find healing in this area, I know anyone can.
Faith fosters hope, and our spirits need all the hope we will allow into our lives. Choosing to believe we are all cared for, like Baby Robin, is hope-ful. God has you even more than the birds, and has made provision for every last thing you might need, and then some. If you have struggled with believing in God, perhaps it's time to try it on again as an experiment. I’m here to cheer you on in either case. Enjoy this video of baby robin!
