The Hummingbird Lesson

Hummingbird's are fascinating creatures. I always love to spot them fluttering around brightly colored  flowers. Yesterday one got stuck in our garage. Sam came in to tell me about 10:00 am that there was a hummingbird in our garage. Sure enough there was. I felt certain our little friend would explore momentarily and then realize there were no brightly colored flowers amongst the bicycles, skateboards, scooters, balls, bats, Barbie jeeps, smelly cleats, dog crates and a plethora of other belongings. I was painting our mudroom right off the garage so I was in and out quite a bit to retrieve more painting supplies. Each time I entered the garage our little friend was still there flapping wildly and searching for what appeared to me a way out. He kept flying up instead of down a little and out the wide open double doors! I started to become concerned for him as did Sam and Lulu. We looked up hummingbirds on the internet and found they are attracted to red and like sugar water. So......we found a red cup, made "hummingbird food" according the the internet directions, poured said food into red cup, placed a ladder, with a red top, under the area he was flying and put the red cup with sugar water on top of the ladder. Our hope was that it would see the red, find the food, and fly downward just a foot or so and then out the open doors. No such luck! Lulu and I prayed for our friend as she was concerned he was lost and missed his family and Mommy and Daddy. (I could eat this child up) The bird kept flying harder and harder upward. We got a broom and the pool net hoping to direct it toward the open doors. Nope! We laughed so hard because we looked like the biggest idiots and we hurt our necks in the process :-) I even got the big fan and tilted it upward to blow the bird toward the opening. We tried everything we could think of but the dumb bird just wouldn't cooperate. We were trying to "help" it and I am sure it thought we were trying to kill it-what with all the wild broom and pool net waving. At the end of the day after the Littles were in bed, I went out to check on my friend. It was getting dark. I opened the door and did NOT see him! Yipeeee! I said to Will, either he died or he flew away. Moments later I saw Will looking down with an odd expression on his face. Oh no! "He is dead isn't he?" "Nope, he is sitting under my back tire looking at me. He is breathing but not moving." It was pitiful. There sat my much exhausted little friend with wings spread out on the concrete. I then went frantically searching for our ancient butterfly net. I swear that thing must be 10 years old. I found it and Will gently placed the net on top of the bird and slowly and gingerly drug him out to a bushy area. I quickly closed the doors and we tried to take the net off him. His beak was stuck in the net! Seriously??? Will shook it a few times and finally......with a great swoosh....my buddy took off into the dusk sky. He was free. He soared so high and fast! I ran in to tell the Littles and they all cheered!

Ok, you are probably thinking, "Lady, you really need to get a life!" I will admit, I was really"into" this little fella. I started to wonder if there was a lesson in this for me. Oh yes there was. How many times do we exhaust ourselves trying to go down our own path? Like the hummingbird trying to find his way out. How many times do we strive and work and exhaust or even harm ourselves because we think we know best? What if God was right there waving a broom or a pool net at us trying to redirect us but we were too headstrong to heed His "help" Some times the things God puts in our paths for help or guidance don't always "look" like help or a good thing. How many times are we the dumb bird that just won't cooperate? But what if we fully trusted? What if we stopped trying so very hard to find our own way and just let Him lead us? I know I have felt like that bird on the concrete, my wings collapsed with physical and emotional exhaustion. That silly bird could have had a grand day in the warm September sun eating nectar from beautiful flowers. It chose instead to almost kill itself and flap around all day in a HOT, smelly garage. Maybe sometimes we actually need to collapse on the concrete to be able to look up and say, "Ok, help. I can't do this on my own. What is your plan God?" And when we do.....how high might we soar? And I'll take sweet nectar over a smelly garage any day! How about you?