by Kay Etheredge

This year’s Lent season held so many lessons.  I learned that Lent is about so much more than finding things or buying things or giving up things.  Lent is about spending time in His Word and coming away knowing, if even for a bit, I sat at His feet and hopefully became more like Him.    It is about looking around and observing the world He has put us in, and recognizing His hand in what I see.    There was the morning a large dove crashed into our window.  The noise was horribly loud.  I felt like a baseball or rock had hit our window.  Our puppies barked.  I feared looking outside, but when I did, there he was.  He laid on the ground, stunned, but I could see that he was breathing.  As I neared the window, my shadow passed over him and he looked up at me.  I began to pray.  All throughout the day I checked on him.  He had moved a little, but was making no attempt to fly.  Simultaneously, I was searching for a baby spoon that had belonged to our youngest daughter.  Her name and birthdate were engraved on its handle, and ever since she had told us she was expecting I had searched for the spoon.  I thought I remembered where I had put it but it wasn’t there.  The “day of the dove” I decided to look one more time, which entailed climbing into a small chair and looking in my top kitchen cabinet.  I had looked there several times, to no avail.  As I climbed up I prayed for the injured dove.  A thought formed in my mind as I climbed, “God doesn’t care about that bird.  In fact, didn’t He require them to be used as sacrifices in Old Testament times?”  The thought disturbed me.  It wasn’t that I heard a voice as much as a very clear thought that I didn’t feel like originated with myself.  I said aloud, “God, you DO care about the dove and the missing baby spoon, because you care about what I care about.”  As I looked one last time in the kitchen cabinet I moved a small cup, and when I did there was a rattle.  I pulled it out to check and there was the baby spoon!  I had simply overlooked it each time before. 

Later, I went to check on the dove.  He was still there but had turned in a different direction.   Again I prayed.  Jim came home from work, and I took him outside to show him the bird.  It made no attempt to flee, its large eyes blinking slowly as we neared.  We drove to the grocery store, came home, and went again to check.  The dove was gone.  We felt like if a predator had gotten the bird there would’ve been evidence…feathers, blood, something.  Our faith told us that the bird had recovered and flown away, just before dark.  Luke 9:43 says “And they were all amazed at the greatness of God”.  Judges 15:18 says, “Then he (Samson) became very thirsty; and he called to the Lord”.  If Samson could take his thirst to God, I know I can take every concern of my heart. 

I lost my sister- in- law during Lent.  We visited her in the hospital and I reached for her hand.  I realized in all the years she had been married to my oldest brother, I had never held her hand.  Her hand was delicate and small, and our conversation was raw and honest.  She cried and I cried.  It’s funny how knowing that death is imminent can cut through small talk.  We understood things about each other that we probably never had before.   I told my brother later that we really had much in common, but life had gotten in the way.  I called my brother days later to check on her and I heard fear in his voice.   The hospice nurse had said she would not live through the weekend.  Jim and I went and she passed while we were there; her daughters and granddaughters had lovingly ministered to her, doing her nails and caring tenderly for her needs.  As we drove home from her funeral we got a call that Jim’s brother was at UAB and dying.  We were two blocks from the hospital when we got the call that he had passed away.  We drove on to the hospital and walked into the tiny room; our niece sat quietly alone with her Dad’s body.  It broke something deep within me. 

I got a text one night from a friend who is on staff at BBM.  He said, “I know we’re breaking the rules but we have brought this baby bird into the dorm.  It fell from its nest onto the sidewalk”.  The text was accompanied by a photo of someone’s hand holding the tiny bird.  A few minutes later there was a short video.  The bird chirped and I could hear a male voice in the background saying “I love you”.  They had put the bird into a box and were feeding it cat food.  If it made it through the night they were going to take it to a wildlife center.  I prayed for these men, seen by many as rough-and- tumble addicts, as they tenderly and gently cared for this baby bird.  I felt so proud to know them and call them my friends.  The next morning I got another text.  The wildlife center wouldn’t take the baby bird but recommended that they try to find the nest and put the bird back inside.  “We got a big tall ladder”, he said, “and put it back inside. As soon as we walked away the mother flew back”.  As far as we know, the bird survived, and we do know that these kind Brother Bryan residents saved the bird’s life with their own nurturing and sacrificial care, and how Jim and I wish that everyone could know these beautiful men and stop saying insensitive things like “Those mission men”.    And Ann Voskamp writes, “If Jesus could dip from the same bowl as Judas and then pass along the bowl with grace, how can we who have been washed in the grace of Christ not find some way to pass on all the grace we’ve known?”   

There were other Lenten lessons…too many for this space.  There was lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in over 40 years;  our hands once held clarinets side by side and played both Wagner and Tiger Rag, and somehow those same hands aged, it seems, as we blinked.     There was the 17^th year of life without my mom, missing her so much, and seeing my name in her handwriting on a handmade bunny’s neck she made me when I was in college.  After years of looking for a quote that was read at my grandmother’s funeral, I found a vintage cross –stitch pillow online with that very quote and ordered it for myself.  I tested positive for Covid and our oldest daughter insisted I go to Urgent Care.  She drove me and it didn’t escape me that it felt like we had switched roles.  I felt old and spent until the nurse praised my great blood pressure, asking me to repeat my age.  When I did, he said “Well, rock on!”  In that split second I looked at my daughter and realized how very insidiously pride can slide under the door and make itself at home, and how silly I was to be prideful over blood pressure.    And once the doctor came into the room and shared a story with me, I said I totally understood why I had gotten Covid.  God wanted me to meet this young doctor who had some very reassuring things to say to me regarding our youngest daughter’s pregnancy that had become a very deep concern for me.  How very good He is!  Our daughter was due on Easter Sunday with her first child who has not come yet.  We wait with great anticipation as we pray.

 There is every evidence that a mother bird accepted with grace her baby bird back in the nest in a tree in front of Brother Bryan Mission.  And there are men, recovering from addiction, many of whom have been incarcerated, who are willing to pour themselves for a long night into a baby bird needing its mama.  They fashioned a bed for it in a box, and they managed to make a trip of almost an hour’s drive to give the bird a chance at life. 

And we have a God who is love.  Who allowed His only Son to die on a cross so we can be in His presence for eternity.  He allows Covid so that a worried mama could speak to someone who would bring great encouragement and needed rest.   And our youngest grandchild, David, sang us a song on Easter.  He was singing “What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the glug glug Jesus”.  And I hold every big and small Lenten gift as precious, and recognize the love of our Father in each one.