It took me awhile to decide to write about this, but I need to remember.
On the last day of August, I was recovering from a very long road trip. My gardens regretted the absence of my vigilant care over the course of two extremely hot weeks.
After a day or two of avoiding the garden issue, tending instead to unpacking, laundry, and shopping for groceries, I finally plucked up courage to venture out and have a look at the damage.
Immediately outside the garage, a white chiffon rose-of-Sharon (hibiscus syriacus) stood, prolifically blooming, and also prolifically dropping spent blooms onto the mulch below, in an ever-widening circle. Duffy loves to eat these dropped blooms; indeed, he is tremendously greedy. Unfortunately, when he gorges himself on hibiscus flowers, he gets sick, and he never learns. So, with some urgency, I prepared a large cardboard box for gathering plant trimmings and detritus. I knelt at the base of the rose-of-Sharon and began scooping up withered white blossoms. As I worked, the breeze meandered around me and the sun shifted bright dapples through swaying leaves. Some sunlight caught a brilliant glimmer of green and blue down in the mulch. I glanced quickly towards it, expecting to see a dragonfly launch itself and fly away, but except for the light, there was no movement. What? I whispered, and reached out wonderingly, pulling away the faded white flowers surrounding the radiance.
It was a hummingbird, a tiny, lustrous, fallen hummingbird, lying stone-still on the ground, reflecting green-blue beauty in the midst of a sea of browning white hibiscus petals. Sadness gutted my heart. I felt guilty, as though I caused the death, and I felt ashamed for seeing such a tragedy. Who finds a lifeless hummingbird at the bottom of her shrub? Isn't this a rhythm of nature that should be private and hidden? "No, God," I said, "Please, no. Why?"
Still feeling guilty and ashamed, I used a layer of flowers to pick up the almost weightless body without touching it directly. The tiny head drooped under the weight of the long, elegantly curved beak. I will never forget the slender black beak, so long in proportion to the body, jutting out from smooth, shining plumage. I wanted to save this morsel of creation, but how? I placed it in the cardboard box, on top of a layer of blossoms, and continued gathering, scooping blossoms, filling the box, covering the hummingbird many times over. In the end, I walked back and forth a number of times before tossing the obscenely full box into our garbage can. A dull ache in my stomach, a shuddering in my chest, I left off gardening for the day.
The next day I received information that something was going wrong for some people I love dearly. There was a need for a doctor visit. I thought of the hummingbird and I prayed, "Please God, no."
Please God, no. Please God, don't let it be.
But it was.
Why? I asked. We all asked. Why do we have to lose such preciousness? Why do beautiful, tiny things have to leave us? Why does life have to be so sad?
Why did the Lord prepare me with the hummingbird?
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are worth more than many sparrows. ~Matthew 10:29-31
A sparrow is a common bird, but a hummingbird is a treasure and a delight. If God sees little gray sparrows fall, of course He sees a tiny, exquisite hummingbird. And other things even more exquisite.
Why?
"In this world, you will have trouble," Jesus told us. "But take heart. I have overcome the world." ~John 16:33
He has overcome. He laid down His life to make a bridge for us to reach paradise.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And He who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also He said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." ~Revelation 21:4-5
Yet, during this time after Jesus won the victory, but while the New Kingdom gestates slowly within believing hearts, before our future glory appears, Jesus hurts for our brokenness. The already and the not yet swirl around us in a tension of loss, hope, devastation and beauty. Tension brings strain, and stress, and confusion. He knows. He has compassion for us. He has empathy.
Jesus wept. ~John 11:35
Jesus weeps for us, His beloved creation, caught in a continuum of sin-stained time that hurts us deeply despite the precious surety of His great promises. Jesus knows our pain, for He entered time Himself and lived with us. He has experienced all the pain of life, all the pain of death, and all the pain which is the consequence of all the sins that have ever and will ever be committed. He knows how painful earth has been for Him, Jesus, God, the perfect, powerful one. He knows how weak we are in comparison, and how impossible it is for us to bear up under the burden.
Thus, our Lord invites us to trust Him. He encourages us to come to Him. He promises to give us rest by coming under the yoke alongside us, bearing the weight of it for us, with His strength. He loves us. He longs to gather us into His arms and comfort us. He promises that He is our strength, our joy, our sufficiency. He promises that all the pain will be made up for, a billion times over, redeemed perfectly and completely, beyond our wildest imaginations.
We only need to trust and wait. And the waiting is for a good purpose. Everything the Lord does is for a good purpose, centered in His desire and plan to save many, many people. He is waiting for His children to come to Him. He knows who they are. And He will not shut the door to eternity until He has gathered all His own into His Kingdom, into His arms.
