Safe and Sound

Grainy photo of  our little bird.

For the last few weeks we've had a nightly visitor to the deck upstairs off our master bedroom. A little bird - it looks like some kind of sparrow or wren to me - has been sleeping on the tiny ledge where our deck post meets the ceiling. Every night around 8:20 to 8:30 this tiny sleepy-headed feathered friend shows up. The ledge where it is roosting is so narrow that the bird can't even hold his head straight - it has to put its bill up in the air and rest on its chin. When I go to the door to the deck and look out the bird swivels its head to look at me, but doesn't seem threatened.

I've become very attached to this little bird. On the few nights when it hasn't shown up I have become concerned and somehow the whole house seems lonelier and sadder. I'm sure it sounds silly, but there's something comforting about the little bird's presence there every night as it sleeps just a few feet from us. Having the bird under our roof feels like a reminder from God that He can and will take care of all His creatures, just as He does that little bird who has found a safe, cozy place to rest.

There's a beautiful passage in the Psalms that says, "Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young - a place near your altar" Psalm 84:3 (NIV). It's only a small thing - and a simple one - but I'm grateful for this reminder that God's eye is not only on the sparrow - His eye is on us all.