Today I remembered something beautiful about robins. I had been looking out at the swaying trees and the dark sky as the rain pelted the grass and turned the dirt into mud. I had remembered the way the rain fell all night. Normally, I wouldn’t become so excited about the rain. But I remembered what comes next. I remembered what the mud means, something I learned two years ago for the first time.
Robins require mud to build their nests. This is precisely why they make nests after rain storms (or why they suddenly begin to build them under a darkening sky that promises rain). In fact, if you like finding nests as I do, watch where the robins go after a rainstorm. Most likely, they’re now building there.
I remembered how, when I first learned about the robins and the mud, I thanked the Lord for the stormy conditions in the heart that provide essential sturdy building material. I think of the growing perseverance, hope, and trust growing in me in the COVID-19 storms. The mud of it fortifies my faith like never before. It’s building material. The hardship around me offers the right kind of conditions to now build something new, something essential, and something I could have never built without the storm.