My mother-in-law did not eat today. Perhaps when you are close to that finish line, you hunger only for heaven. Soon she’ll be invited in to feast at His banqueting table–the grand celebration of her arrival Home.
These are laboring days, long hours working towards deliverance from the womb of this world into our real life, the life everlasting.
Jesus knows. So He sends winged messengers, harbingers of His heart, envoys from Home.
Outside her bedroom window today, they came. Dozens and dozens of resplendent goldfinches flitted. Hummingbirds droned about the feeder, ruby breasts flashing. Several grosbeaks, and at least as many brilliant baltimore orioles, gathered too, learning to drink, awkwardly at times, from the hummingbird feeder. The lengths that messengers, their breasts hot scarlet with His love, don’t go to: wrong feeder, wrong territory, right window.
Mom V., words having already taken flight, smiled her grateful receipt. And then… entirely unexpected… a luminous indigo bunting, blazing blue from heaven’s heights, graced the lilac’s limb. In a breathless whisper, Dad V., seated near Mom’s ear, asked, “Do you think anyone else in the neighbourhood gets all these birds?”
No, I think not. These are sent only for those about about to take wing… and soar.
“Some glad morning when this life is o’er,
I’ll fly away.
To a home on God’s celestial shore,
I’ll fly away.
I’ll fly away, O Glory, I’ll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I’ll fly away.”
Lord, she is preparing to fly. Do You hear her wings fluttering outside heaven’s door? We saw a glimpse of You– refulgent, radiant You— outside her window today. Funny how close heaven and earth are.
Related archives:
Soaring
Each day is One Day Closer (one I revisit, often)
And from Parables of Nature, gather the young ones for a must read, a story for life: An Unknown Land
