Three weeks ago, the robins fledged. On that very day, I began work with the Cru Grad Summer Mission. This morning, the team and the students departed, and I found myself alone in the quiet, still morning. I was sad and tearful and uncertain. There’s always this moment of disorientation and a need to recalibrate, reorient, and discover who you are again when something ends and a new thing begins.
And since it’s July 1st, I begin to pray to consecrate July. I just sit with the Lord and wonder about life and seasons and transitions. I just sit still.
And then, I see something unusual and unexpected in the Winterberry Bush. How can it be? Now? New robins build a new nest right in front of the old one.
A new nest? For me?
For the first time in a decade, I find a fresh nest in the same spot in July. Normally, my time of egg hunting has long gone; I move on to harvesting and marveling over berries and pumpkins and tomatoes on the vine. I move on. It’s time.
Apparently, the Lord let something carry over–some marvelous, precious thing He knew would delight my heart as I stood at the kitchen window. Sometimes, seasons don’t work as they should. Time doesn’t march on in the ordinary ways. You find yourself spying on eggs because the Lord knew you needed it, that you weren’t quite ready for it all to end.