It was an unexpected moment. Most are, that speak to the heart.
Birds. Yes, birds.
Birds lined up along the back end of my wooden eight foot tall fence, that encloses my back yard.
"I'm getting my camera, don't knock the glass." I quietly tell, Seth.
Mistake. I should have not said a word. I don't know if he knocked it or not, but the birds were gone in the seconds it took me to get my camera from the other room.
Why?
Why were there at least 50 birds lining the top back of my fence, side by side in a row as though they showed up for guard duty?
Or did they?
About a year ago, I noticed large groups of birds flying over my home at least three or four times within a month. One particular, greyish overcast day, they flew over my house, I was standing just behind my car on our black driveway, where weeds randomly grow out of the cracks, throughout. I could hear the flutter of their wings as they flew over my head. I uttered beneath my breath, "what are you trying to say?"
I felt strongly the Holy Spirit was ruffling the feather's of my own spirit, trying to get my attention.
Within a month after that moment, the Lord gave me a vision of angels encircled around our home. This had never happened to me, before. Angels in a vision, in my minds eye.
I realized in my secret times with Him, He was inviting me, wooing me like a cooing of doves that sing over you, into a sweet and sacred work of my heart. In part, these angels represented the protection, the guarding of this intimate work. The birds continued to almost "follow me." Again and again, I would find them in large numbers, where ever I would be. Even flying overtop my car, at very significant times, moments, along the freeway's, driving. Almost everywhere I went, I was seeing large numbers of them.
Though I missed taking that picture with my camera, this morning, I didn't miss their presence. Seeing them lined up like that, spoke silently, yet so clearly to me. We're still, here! We're still guarding, the continued work that has been ongoing, a year later. Call me crazy, but God will use many things to get our attention, to speak to us about what He is doing, midst and in our lives. The question is, will we stop long enough to pay attention and grasp something of what He is bringing forth, into this realm for our lives?
Later that evening I had carried Seth into the house from the car. He fell asleep on the way home from church. As I went back to the front door after laying him down, I see on the floor something wiggling, and moving upside down on its back. Long and sticklike looking, I bend at the waist to peer into the fighting for it's life creature on my floor.
A baby leaf praying mantis.
It clearly was struggling. I gently lifted it onto the paper towel I grabbed to set it out on our window sill. I wanted to give it a chance to find it's freedom, again.
As I watched it, sadness stirred within my heart. It didn't look as though he was going to make it. I grabbed the camera. This time,... I got that picture without it flying away.
An hour and a half went by. Steve was leaving for work and just before he did so, I went out to check on the "little one." He clearly appeared... as though he was no longer alive.
The sadness, deepened.
I felt responsible. That feeling landed in mystery, catching my heart, off guard.
After all, my coming in the door, my footsteps, somehow caused his life to not only be ushered into ours, but then turned upside over with my feet. How could anything survive that, right?
I gently gathered the paper towel I had put him on from our window sill and carried him over to the mulch area, to the left of our front door. Camouflaged in our mulch, he laid there stiff. Like dead weight.
That same dead weight, laid itself like a weighted blanket over my heart.
I kissed Steve goodnight as he left for work. With one last glance toward the motionless mantis, I moved my feet back into the house shaking my head as to the wonder of why this hit me, so. I felt silly that I was being a bit torn up inside over a leaf mantis.
Maybe this sadness is remnant of having lost our kitty, Aslan, a week ago. Except this was an insect. Something that I had no attachment to, but that... I was responsible. Or would this moment reveal something deeper, camouflaged within the mulch, of life?
The- next- morning- I walked out our door to go to the store. As I was turning the key to lock the door, my peripheral vision was turned in a triangular direction to my left as I saw something move. There hanging poignantly, on the brown and red brick of our home, hung the baby leaf mantis.
Looking right at me. As though to say with a silence that spoke volumes, "I have overcome!"
Tears began to fill my eyes. A rush of emotion took flight inside me. Where wings in flight were beginning to feel weathered by perseverance through the past year, suddenly they felt tended to. Tenderly held in the palm of hope. Caressed by compassion. Carried to a place where healing and the mystery of healing, collided.
All in a precise moment, where timing was perfect.
I called out, "Seth, come look, I have to show you this!"
I was so thrilled to have him see this mantis, for he is the expert in our home on all things, creepy crawly. He was thrilled to see it. But what he didn't know was the story in my heart that this baby mantis held.
As I unfolded the story to Seth, of course, I began to cry. "You're about to cry, Mommy, aren't you?" Seth asked. (He reads me like a book.)
"Yes, honey I am... I don't know why, but this really touched me," I told him.
I called Steve. I called Tracy. I told them, the story. I also told them the story about, the birds.
A few days later, midst the morning humidity and the heat of the sun, I was in our back yard doing, "doggie duty." I began to ask the Lord to speak to my heart, anything He wanted.
"The birds, the mantis." I knew it was His voice. I knew there was something He was wanting me to become mindful of. "What is it you want me to gather, Lord?" I pondered in reply.
As I continued to "pick up" the yard... I simply was still- in spirit.
I am still pondering this moment. It felt so sacred to me. I am convinced that seeing the birds that morning and the mantis in the darkness of evening, are connected. I'm convinced those moments will continue to speak to me about something, in my life.
That things are not always what they "appear" to be; irredeemable.
It may very well be that there is a redemption, a resurrection, a replenishing of spirit and breath, about to come forth... in the night.
Despite the night.
Where air and movement, platform and purpose, timing and trepidation, all collide.
Returning from the store, I turned the key of our door to let us in our home. Just before stepping inside the house, I stepped away from the door, leaned over and panned the camouflaged mulch to spy our baby mantis.
He was gone. Somewhere in flight, I suppose.
And something about that moment, of not seeing him anywhere seemed absolutely just as it should be. It was not meant for me to see him again. It would have taken away from, the story. And, perhaps, this too is why those birds were there for just a divinely, brief moment.
Moments, we least expect.
It's been a year. I've been seeing more and more birds, still, flying together in the hundreds. Taking flight.
Perhaps, much is about to take flight in my life, too.
What do your "still" moments, teach you? What longings do you have, waiting to take, flight?
