Silly Bird

Yesterday I ran outside because I literally didn't know what to do with myself. 

I was completley overwhelmed. With work as a teacher starting up next week, Adela's baptism on Sunday, and some projects that I promised would get done before summer ended ... I just didn't know where to start. I had a horrible sinking feeling that I wouldn't get it all done at all. 

So, I ran outside with my socked feet stuffed into my thong sandals (I don't know why I do that) and walked up and down the drive way. I prayed and cried and asked God to please just write down a list of what He wanted from me so that I could stop being confused and disappointed in myself all the time. 

All the time. 

Because at the end of the day, the list felt like a big fat sign that I had messed up. That I had messed up the summer. Maybe I was doing all the wrong things. Maybe I wasn't on the right track. Maybe my family wasn't on the right track. Maybe I wasn't what and who I was supposed to be and needed to trim corners of my heart to fill the space that others expected of me. 

My eyes lifted to the sky and I finally saw the approaching storm, the warm moist wind filling my face and nose. 

I love storms. It feels like watching a force of God approach, full of power and promise. 

So I sat on an old blue tractor and wiped tears from my face. 

A bird, a simple barn swallow, flew in front of me and perched on the power lines. "Look at the birds. They do not plant or harvest or store food in barns and your Heavenly Father feeds them." Matthew 6:26. I stared at the bird. It didn't need to worry and God promised me that I was more valuable that it. That silly little barn swallow. 

That barn swallow also didn't need to be anything but himself. He just had to be. To live. 

"Oh, God," I breathed. "Me, too?"

He whispered back into my soul. Yes, you, too, Lora. You just need to be. 

The fog, confusion, and fear cleared. I smiled. I even felt a little foolish. 

I am me.

I have a ridiculous passion to improve things, to teach, to watch people grow, to figure out systems, to find the fullness in life every breath of my life. 

Oh, goodness, how I suddenly loved that bird. It isn't a smart creature and it isn't worried about it. The more it trusts God the more it rests in God's bounty and provision. 

I rose from the tractor when the wind gusted up, the sand pushing me back to the house and my list. I am me. God created me for His purposes. I just need to enjoy the ride, the placement of my soul in the wide tapestry of His love story. 
​

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"
Matthew 6:25-27, NIV

I spent a lot of time gardening this summer. This is one of four rose bushes I planted. It has been so good for my soul.

​Where in your life do you feel you need to stop striving and just be you?