Monday, December 26, 2011

Trapped!!!


Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings and love on the day after Christmas. Trust yours was a blessed one!  We enjoyed family so much, next to God, it is everything!

Jon and I came home around three yesterday from Amy's.  When Jon got on the deck he hollered back to me that a Carolina Wren was trapped.  I wondered how in the world this could be.  I've done everything to make my backyard and deck a bird haven.  In addition to the large feeder hanging from the tree, close to my window, I've added a 3-tier feeder from the deck.  It has suet, seed, and fruit.  I've had such an enormous array of birds.  The Carolina Wrens especially love the suet and fruit.  They are such friendly birds, seemingly fearless of humans.  I love their noisy chatter. It sounds as though they're scolding the others!

I couldn't believe my eyes!  We've been plagued with flies the last couple of weeks. I'd gone to the farm store and in desperation bought some fly strips to hang. I hate them, but hey, like I said I was desperate. They seemed useless inside, so unbeknown to me, Jon had hung one just outside our back door.

The pathetic little Carolina Wren, attracted by the flies, thought he'd found an easy meal.  There he was, little feet and wings all gooed onto the strip.  If you know anything about these strips, you know the goo is incredibly strong stuff.

I was so horrified!  Jon and I worked to release the struggling bird.  It's little feet and wings were a mess.  We finally managed to do so, but without much hope of it's survival.  The little bird, still coated with the goo, hobbled off under the deck.  I'm sure it will never be able to fly with it's stuck wings, and I suspect, that if it didn't find some safety, that Sara will finish it off.

This morning, as I sat with my Bible by the window and watched my birds, my heart was broken.  All that smorgasbord of food available and yet, the little bird just had to stray elsewhere.  

I wondered about my distressed feeling.  I love my birds, I provide, and care for them.  How can this be?  My thoughts turned to My Father and His promise that He cares for the sparrows.  And reminds me of how much more He loves me.  How greatly He must grieve when we go astray, looking for better fair in dangerous places.  All we need, He lovingly provides, and yet the temptations of this world beckons so loudly!  There is pleasure in sin for a season, for sure.  Just as my little wren left all for what appeared to be "greener pastures," man so often, chooses instant gratification.  AND THEN...the trap is sprung.

God beckons, longs, and loves mankind.  There is a haven of safety, inside His perimeters.  God's law doesn't box us in, but fences out the heartache of this world. 

The commercials and billboards don't show the last chapter.  The destroyed lives, the broken bodies, the ruined future.  They paint it all so glamorously.  But when sin is finished, it brings forth death.

You can be sure that there will be no more fly traps on my deck.  Hopefully, no more birds will suffer such an end.

How much more our Father wants to protect us, to defend us, to entreat us....  Truly, His is a "love without measure!"  May I never take it lightly!

Linda  

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