Mercy and a Yellow Warbler

Lacey spring air painted the deck with a thin sheet of frost. The hushed anticipation of renewal was checked by a last thrust of winter’s fading power. The trees swollen with life waited backstage for their coming glory-crowning and the sky held the promise of blue skies and long days coming.

My husband discovered her in the morning. The tiny warbler, like a slip of sunlight on our back porch, lying motionless, lying flightless and afraid. She must have been overzealous, excited by the prospect of sweet new days, of plentiful food, of warm warbler chicks with chirping cries and beating hearts.

Full of spring-life, she flew against the reflecting glass of the window, and she fell. There on the deck, my husband found her cold body, her tiny cold body with the shadow of a heartbeat, the faint whisper of a dying hope in the season of life. I looked at her and the sorrow came over my heart like a veil.

I had to go. I couldn’t stay, and she was dying. Before I left, I said to my husband--remembered something that I had read in a Birding magazine—Rub her body gently with your finger to coax her back to life; the bird may only be stunned, even though she gives the appearance of dying. She may only have had the wind knocked out and needs to be kept warm and regain her strength—

So I asked him to try it and left, doubting that it would work, that revival was a possibility, that the little yellow warbler would taste the sweet air again and feel the delight of spring on her wings.

Thoughts flew through my mind as I drove—if she didn’t improve, we could bring her to the Wildlife Rehabilitation facility in Peace, RI; maybe they could help her-maybe they could do something. What could I do but try and throw a feeble, hopeful suggestion over my shoulder?

So he stayed there with the little warbler and I left. And I hoped as I drove and I prayed . . .

I knew a woman stunned, fallen like the yellow warbler. Her breath knocked from her through the crash of sharp providence, she fell, wounded and unable to pick herself up.

Sometimes tragedy is like that. Sometimes it knocks the wind from us and leaves us so shaken that we cannot pick ourselves up. Sometimes we sit like Job in the dust, speechless and crushed, scraping our wounds with the broken pottery of the well-meaning words of our friends and bleeding the sorrow of the enemies' pompous jeering triumph.

Sometimes we cannot pick ourselves up. Sometimes there are too many broken pieces and the confusion overwhelms and the eyes cannot see for the teardrops that cloud them.

And sometimes God calls us to be a Hur or an Aaron to some precious child of His who cannot lift their arms, who cannot find the words to pray. There are Adoniram Judsons among us who are standing sentry at some lonely grave for months and months and they cannot wrench themselves from the jungle of their sorrow. They cannot lift themselves from the despair, from the dying; they have had their breath knocked out.

It is so easy, like Job’s friends, to cast a judgement on the downcast, to offer a quick-fix, to empty blame upon a bleeding heart when no immediate answer can be found for the reason behind their suffering.

Does there have to be a reason that we can fold our eager fingers around? How did Job’s friends know that there was a contest in the heavenlies raging around a small, faithful servant of God named Job? How can we fully know as finite humans what purpose is in the mind of God in our sufferings? How can we grasp Omnipotence and Divine Wisdom?

We cannot . . . but we can trust Him for His purpose in what He allows and ordains. And we can know that He will protect and preserve those who are His, those He shelters in His great Father-hand of love and truth and awesome justice.

Who knows how long Job suffered . . . Would the church today condemn him for sitting in the dust? Are we sometimes so impatient with our fellow brothers and sisters that we leave them on the frosty deck, thinking that if it is God’s will they will revive and fly? Do we leave them to the “will of the Lord,” or do we lift them up and stimulate their faith, with sensitivity, compassion and patience? Do we help the blood to flow through their numb, lifeless limbs again, or are we frustrated when it seems like they are taking too long to “snap out of it?”

Do we pick them up, as Jesus reached out His hand to Peter in the raging waves? Peter’s faith had failed . . . and yet, the hand of Jesus, and the gentle rebuke of grace offered in love. Would He allow one of His to slip through the angry waves to utter ruin?

I love the way that Isaac Newton took lonely, depressed, suicidal William Cowper under his wing. What patience, what grace this great man of faith offered through the Holy Comforter. Is God calling one of us to be that kind of support to another of His own? To offer ourselves, to pour ourselves out for another child of God? Isaac Newton did it continually, even opening his home to Cowper as a refuge and encouraging the depressed poet laureate of England to write hymns of glory to the Father of all Comfort.

And we sing them today.

My husband called.

The warbler lived . . . sat up in his hand and eventually took wing to the sky.

Through the patience of waiting . . . and the mercy of God.

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For the Love of the Needy

“The firstborn of the poor will feed,

And the needy will lie down in safety . . .”

Isaiah 14:30a

It was a dismal day to begin with and the worn pet supply store looked unpromising. She was after bunny treats and Wal-Mart didn’t have them in stock, so we took a different turn in our travels and hoped for the best.

Lish and I waited in the car, and a few minutes later, my Mom emerged from the grimy building. The expression on her face said it all.

“What happened?" we asked and she told us about a white baby rabbit, alone in a cage, huddling in the corner, its entire ear chewed off, cowering. 

My Mom asked the girl who worked there, “What’s wrong with his ear?” and she replied sagely, in a hushed voice, “Oh don’t worry about him; he’s for feed.” 

So my sister and I ventured in, hearts pricked. We walked into the store, lights dim, stale music blaring. Over to the rabbit cages, packed on top of one another, and we saw him. Afraid, rejected, with mangy white fur and minus one ear. We said, “We’ll take him, that one,” and they tried to veer us away, but we were determined. We bought him, all 16 dollars of him.

The man at the desk gave us a discount, “because of his ear,” a discounted life handed to us in an old cardboard box and we hurried out of the pet store into the fresh air and the open wide sky that the One who values the sparrow made for His pleasure. 

And we take him home and we feed him and we give him a clean, fresh place to sleep, and we love him, because he’s one of God’s creatures. 

We take what was rejected, cast aside, because there is something in the redeemed heart that should ache for the low thing, for the thing that is despised, rejected, thrust out in a cardboard box, intended as food for a snake. 

And there is something craven about the person who doesn’t care, something hard and crusty, something amiss. 

I was never an “animal person” until I became saved and I still don’t innately feel a passion toward my four-footed friends. I remember when my understanding was opened and I knew the Holy Spirit stirring inside my heart. It began with our growing-old dog, Bonnie. I felt differently towards her, felt compassion towards her and began to pay attention to her, brush her, and talk to her more than I had in the past. The Lord continued to work in my heart and to give me a love for His creatures around me. He continues to teach me this grace, and I pray that my heart will continue to grow in sensitivity and genuine compassion. 

The prophet Nathan tells a story about the man who callously slaughtered and cooked another man’s pet lamb. Heavy judgement hovered over that man, and even though the analogy is to be drawn between David, Bathsheba, and Uriah, there is a principle that cannot be ignored. Callousness/cruelty of heart, whether toward a creature or toward a human being invokes judgement.  The Lord would have us show mercy in our dealings with other men as well as with His animal creation, as the situation and as conscience dictate. 

I am not speaking of animal-worship, puppy-princess, PETA nonsense here. I am talking about decency and compassion and caring for the Lord’s creatures in a way that honors Him—whether it be through humane slaughter for food, or through careful protection and preservation as a tangible example of His kindness and mercy towards that which is weak.  

Mephibosheth sat at the King’s table. Crippled, “discounted” Mephibosheth, and David took him in.  

Jesus was a “Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him . . .” (Isaiah 53:3) Despised and rejected, nothing in His appearance that was desireable. And yet, He was the Chosen One, the God-Man, anointed with oil flowing down His beard--the compassionate, crushed, humble Servant who can have compassion on the wounded and the rejected because He also was and can sympathize with us in our weaknesses. 

Time and time again in the Word of God, it is the lowly, the outcast that the Lord takes pity upon. Not the ones who are beautiful and sleek and rich and well-clothed and well-fed. The outcasts, the poor, the ones who know their need. 

The funny thing is, that these are usually the ones who are the most grateful for this outpouring of mercy. Of all the animals that we’ve had (and we’ve had a lot) it is the ones who have been the most abused who appreciate being loved and taken care of the most. 

And that is how it is with us and with God. The one who has been forgiven much loves much. The one who has been maimed and discounted and chewed up by sin and then is drawn by the Father, is the one who stays near to Him in gratitude and love. 

He is gracious, to the sparrow, to the poor bunny huddled in a cage, to us. May we be gracious to the suffering too and show the love and mercy of Christ to the least of these.