God is Waiting to Help Us Fly

One morning last October, I stepped out the back door of our kitchen. The sun had not yet risen and in the darkness of the early morning, my eyes were drawn to a small, walnut-sized form on the ground. Looking closer, I realized a baby sparrow that had fallen from its nest. It was visibly hurt; the best description I can give is it looked “crooked.”

It was barely breathing and I thought I’d put it in a warm box and give it a comfortable place to pass away.

I later left to take my daughter, Andreya, to school and figured the little sparrow would die before I got back. However, this bird had other ideas. Our sparrow, later named Jack Sparrow by Andreya, had spark. He wanted to live.

Jack Sparrow didn’t thrive right away. It took him a week to begin healing from his injuries. I would pry his little beak open with a small pair of tweezers and force feed him soft boiled eggs, cooked rice and whatever else I could get him to eat. Once he began to feel better, he ate with relish and complained if his feedings were late.

But he remained very “crooked-looking.” I doubted he would ever heal to the place where we could release him, so I let myself get attached. Several times during the day, I would find myself sitting with Jack Sparrow at a table on the front porch. He would hop around my laptop and onto my lap chirping happily. I never thought there would be a day when Jack Sparrow would fly.

A Company of Friends

Jack enjoyed our company and the company of my African Grey parrot, Kevin. Andreya named Kevin after one of the “minion” characters from the movie, “Despicable Me.”

For those who know me well, it comes as no surprise that rescuing Jack Sparrow was not a difficult decision for me to make. While initially I didn’t think he would live, I was very pleased that he did.

We made an interesting company of friends: three humans, an African Grey parrot and a small sparrow.

Fly With The Sparrows

After about a month, Jack began trying to flap his crooked wings. As crooked as they were, he managed to flutter a bit from place to place. This helped him avoid injury when he was hopping around the table and picking at my keyboard. Everyone was amazed that Jack not only recovered, but seemed to enjoy hanging around me as much as I enjoyed hanging around him.

I found myself worrying about Jack Sparrow whenever I was out. I hoped he wasn’t too hungry while he waited for me to return from work. His loud cries for food every time I walked in made me hurry to get another meal into him – it’s amazing how much that little bird could eat!

As he grew and got stronger, I encouraged him to fly. It was discouraging at first, watching him fail to gain height. He would just flutter to the ground or from place to place. But slowly, very slowly, as his injured body began to straighten out, Jack began to fly.

One day when Jack managed to land on the porch light (some 10 feet above the ground), I knew there was a chance for him to fly with the sparrows.

Jack Finds His Wings

The past two weeks I’ve been watching Jack fly stronger and faster on the front porch (which is screened in). He began to hang out with me less while he stared at the wild sparrows flying outside. Just outside the front porch, a couple of sparrows made a nest and began feeding their babies. Jack liked to fly to the opposite side of the wall where the nest was and would “hang out” with his new friends.

Yesterday, when I let Jack out to fly and exercise, he didn’t let me return him to his cage as he normally would. I put food out on the table, which he ate, but he didn’t want to have any part in going back to his cage. I knew what was coming but instead of facing it at that moment, I simply closed the front door and went to work for the day.

Several hours passed before I came home. I found Jack in the same humor: there was no way he would go back in the cage. So I did what needed to be done. I opened the front door off the porch and waited for him to make his move outside. It took some time, maybe an hour or two, before he noticed that he was free to go. I fed Jack one last time from my hand and the next moment, he found his wings and was gone.

I didn’t take into account until he left how happy/sad I would feel when he flew. God had taken a broken sparrow and opened my eyes to the beauty of when sparrows fly.

No Scar?

None of us will emerge from this life without a scar (or several). Jesus didn’t escape scars, which remain with Him to this day (see John 20:27). But His scars speak of the work He accomplished for us. His scars speak of healing, hope and life.

I’ve broken a couple of bones in my lifetime. Each time I went to the doctor’s to remove the cast, the doctor said that the places where the bones have healed are actually stronger than where the bones weren’t broken.

Breaks and bumps make us stronger.

Where We Have Fallen From

Jack wasn’t perfectly straightened out when he left. His wings remained a bit crooked and his chest was set a bit off to the side. But the scars of his fall from the nest didn’t matter, he had healed and was able to fly.

The scars we bear from our falls in life are there to remind us of where we have fallen from. They also remind us of Who bore their pain for us so that we could fly again.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5 NKJ)

God is waiting to see His children heal, He is waiting to see when His sparrows fly.