The Sparrow

"Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?* And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. ~Luke 12:6-7

During my deepest, darkest times, this scripture has resonated within me. Today,my friend, Amy, shared this link on Facebook.

What a beautiful way to begin today.

Sparrow

Tags: Courage

I have always loved the verse that says God cares about us more than sparrows.

I’m not sure I’ve always believed it, though.

For the longest time I kept it to myself, always nodding at the right time while in Christian circles, furrowing my brow in agreement when it was brought up. As if I was considering the depths of this unfathomable love, and swallowing it like sweet tea in the hot sun.

Delicious.

But that wasn’t what I was thinking.

I was actually imagining what it must be like to honestly believe God would love me that way.

Those girls in Bible study had their act together. And all I had was a Bible that had brand-new stuck-together pages and a date with a guy who couldn’t remember my last name.

I decided it was a complicated last name and stifled the desire to be known by either one.

But the image of a sparrow chased me everywhere I went.

Years passed.

Decades, in fact.

And I continued to believed that a God Who would love someone like me wasn’t worth loving back.

And one day, over a cup of too-cold coffee, I decided I wanted to know what it was that made this bird so important. I had gone through a very dark time in my life and I was looking for Him, for answers, for a reason to believe He even cared, let alone loved me.

Quite frankly, I wasn’t that worried about love.

I just wanted to know I existed to Him.

Why would He care about the number of tears I cry, or hairs on my head? I just wanted Him to know I cried at all.

I waited on Him.

After about an hour I came across (I was tempted to say stumbled, but we all know that isn’t true at all) an article on a particular type of bird. It wasn’t a Christian reference, but rather a zoological-type book with statistics and pictures for someone who knows much more about birds than I do.

I skimmed it until I came across a sentence that explained how this certain type of bird learned how to sing. I didn’t finish reading it before the tenderness overcame me.

“And this particular bird cannot learn to sing in the daylight because it is always concerned with the chatter around it. Instead, its cage must be covered so that it is in complete darkness. Then, it is able to hear its master and will learn to sing…”

More than a sparrow.

More than the pitch-black-darkness.

He loves me.

And in that place of feeling left alone, unwanted, disregarded, abandoned, He whispered to my weary soul;

Sing, love.

In the black night, I listened to His voice and I heard Him in a way I never had before. I stopped trying to focus on the silhouettes around me, panicked and desperate for my bearings. I accepted the fact that it might be a long while before I knew where I was and how to find my way back. Slowly, I started to believe that He treasured me enough to trust my voice in the dark. Nobody watching, nobody to judge.

Just me and the One Who told me I was worth it.

Have you heard Him, too? I pray so.

Sing, love.

Despicable as the shadows may be, they hold the promise of the Master’s voice. Worry not about tomorrow, wondering if the sun will come again.

It will, as it always does, in some sense or another.

In the meantime, raise your voice to the One Who loves you.

He loves you.

It isn’t too late to fill the sky with the sound of song. And when you do, know I will be not-so-far away, joining in with you as we await the dawn.

Sing, love.

The Master is listening…

By Angie Smith, Bring the Rain

Now the computer's back, where were we?

This month we gained 2 new additions to our family. Meet Mr. Toad and the wet Sprocket.

It took me a year and a half to convince S that we should get some, but he finally caved and we have had so much fun with our African dwarf frogs. Their names are a double entendre of sort. Mr. Toad's name comes from Wind in the Willows which I loved as a kid. When you put Mr. Toad with Sprocket, you get a great band - Toad and the Wet Sprocket. Ha!

In any case, W has the dubious honor of getting to feed them and he proudly tells S, "Daddy, that's MY job!" Lil'G, on the other hand, he is more like the girl "FISSS-SHE's" that the dentist wants to give Nemo too. So, our job, is to save the frogs from G's loving but deathly embrace.

Hard lesson

This month started out with a bang. About 3 weeks ago, little G, unbeknownst to me, highjacked my large bottle of water and poured it over a closed, but running laptop. Yep, sweet baby boy had caused over $800 worth of damage. Thankfully, the good Apple people took pity on this poor mother and the Genius guy, without me asking, went to his management to ask them to cover the repair costs. Then the clouds parted and the angels started singing because Apple management said yes to covering the repair costs although it really was our fault. (It pays to be nice and funny to service reps!!)

With that said, there is always good with the bad and vice versa. When we got the computer back, we had lost all our precious pictures, videos and music collection. We were not able to backup the computer before we took it because it just wouldn't run long enough. We almost physically sick thinking about we had lost... over 6 years of wonderful, precious memories. (We do have an external hard drive, but, like idiots, we hadn't backed up the computer in quite some time. More than that, we can't locate it. (It had been kept downstairs, but was moved due to flooding and construction in the room.))

So here we are, trying to piece the last 7 years of our life together. Fortunately, S remembered he might have some duplicate files that he had been planning on deleting at work. He brought the jump drive home and I nearly cried. We regained over 6,000 pictures! Praise be! I have never been so relieved! We got back most of our photos, with exception of the last year and a half.

And I hate that. Because, it means I've lost so many photos of precious baby G. I cried for 2 days as the realization sunk it. We had photos of his birth and the first 2 months of his life and then nothing. I can be thankful that we have great family who are willing to give me copies of their photos, but I have a hard time swallowing that we've lost those day-to-day pictures.

On Friday, I went out and bought a new external hard drive. I backed up everything immediately. We will not go through that again.