The Cardinal

Taking my kids to school this morning we passed a female cardinal sitting in the middle of the road. It was sitting right on the yellow line just waiting for a car to come along and smoosh it. So we made a quick decision to swing around and move it out of harms way. It didn't struggle at all when I picked it up. It seemed to be stunned by whatever caused it to land in the middle of the road. We decided to place it under a tree in someone's yard, hoping it was only temporarily out of sorts and would soon snap out of it and be back to fluttering around looking for food, or fly back to a nest that was waiting.

Although stopping for a hurt and disoriented animal came naturally to me, we had 32 pets at my parent's house when I went off to college, and I'm someone who has actually turned around and stopped traffic so a black snake could safely cross the road, I'm well aware that when it comes to people, it can be a different story. When it comes to people I see who have been hit by life and are sitting there stunned, I sometimes run the other way.

I'm often like all the cars that went wizzing by the bird, too preoccupied with getting to where I need to go and keeping myself on track to turn around. I think sometimes I'm afraid if I decide to help that person who I know has been thrown off track, I may get somehow sucked into the drama myself and be thrown off track too.  Maybe I think they shouldn't have been near the road in the first place. Maybe I'm not sure that helping will even bring any changes in their situation or save them from a certain outcome. But maybe, that person is just a little stunned. Maybe all they need is for someone to give them just a little of their time and they'll be able to find their strength again.

The cardinal may not make it. She may have internal injuries that we weren't able to see. But at least we didn't use that as an excuse not to turn around. At least we gave her a fighting chance. Maybe, we gave her all she needed to be able to return to the sky and fly...

Romans 5:3-4,5 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation...When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.