Dark-Flight

 In all the years I've lived here and watched thousands of birds and nature outside these windows of mine, I'd never seen a phenomenon such as this before. After the midnight hour - darkness hanging all around and outside world hunkering deep in the grasp of snow-clad winter - I noticed movement just near the glass of the kitchen window: a northern chickadee (frequent visitor in these parts) flying up to the window and landing just on the sill. All other bird-friends have found safe and silent repose somewhere by this time, so to have one out roaming the night-sky is to see something rather surprising. For at least a couple minutes, this little bird hung around the kitchen window, peering in as I softly spoke to it and, for some reason, I felt a kinship with this fragile avian companion. 

Darkness can be disorienting. And I've often felt that truth more than I'd like to say. Not all slumber through the night hours, and not all peacefully rest their way through their nights of the soul either. Perhaps, like sleep-walking, there is such a thing as sleep-flight. Of moving your way around in the helpless state of dark's blind, wondering where you're headed. It's easy to lose one's way when the sunshine has left. 

During some of the most difficult seasons of my life, I've felt as if I could not see anything I know to be true, to exist. It's like it all changed - simply because I lost the natural light. Faith told me I could still believe in the Light of the World to hold firm, but even that sometimes grew dim...or so it seemed. My eyes couldn't find their vision and thus, I couldn't find my way. 

As I observed that little bird, though, it occurred to me that the bird came to where the light way. It settled where it knew it could be safe from whatever had thrown it off-course. 

The Light always draws, always calls. It pulls us ever-nearer to the one place where true safety and comfort lie. To the One in whose arms we are forever-held.

Once that fluffy thing flew away, I headed to bed myself. And I trust the Hand that cares for all creatures guided my tiny pal to a rest-haven where it could bed down also. 

And as I lay under the covers that night, I thought of how I, too, have been guided and cared for often in ways I couldn't number. Couldn't name. The One who made the creatures and who also made me has carried me to safety when and where I least expected it. His light has provided a way to and a way through when nothing else would. And I've ever-so-slowly learned where to go, where to turn when I lose sight of where I'm going. The beams of His everlasting kindness have drawn me in when I felt the most lost, pulled me to the bosom of Love as I flapped and flailed to no avail, frantic from trying to find my own way forward. 

I've always been brought back home when I wandered. 

The dark-flight never did prove to be my undoing, however much I feared it would. 

Somehow, I am yet led back to where I belong, and the winter-cold never kept me from reaching the place of desired rest. 

Eyes fluttered shut and lungs breathed in deep and soul quieted itself in sleep because the Ruler of all holds it all and even the smallest things such as a lost bird never escape His notice. Much more so, does this little life of mine matter to Him and all that concerns it. And even when the dark prevents me from seeing the path, the eyes that scan throughout the earth still see me and His strong arms catch me, and I am guided securely onward.