Hope flew in
18th May 2020
Something amazing and beautiful happened the other day.
But first I need to tell you about a thing me and God have got going on.
When I was a something-teen year old I had a job working on a mushroom farm. Yes, a mushroom farm – they are a real thing! Anyway, the mushroom farm was in a nearby village, and as mushroom farm shifts started at some ridiculously early o’clock, I would get up and cycle the 2 and a half miles to work.
One morning as I cycled along the road, out from the verge in front of me emerged a creature I’d never seen before or since (which for the curious amongst you I now know was a stoat! Yes a stoat – they’re a real thing too) I remember stopping on my bike and watching it pause and play only a couple of meters in front of me, till it eventually lolloped down the road and back into the verge. Even as a sleep groggy, bleary eyed and wildlife naïve teenager it was a moment – a special screening for an audience of one that gives you all the feels - you know where there is a vivacious bubble that wells up from somewhere inside and bursts out a smile in your chest as well as on your face.
And I can’t really remember any more whether God said something to me or I said something to God – but in the same way that you love a particular cake because you enjoyed it with a friend that time you got together, or the flowers your husband buys you that become meaningful because of the shared treasured moments, so began this thing between me and God. Every now and again – there is a moment – always significant and bubbling with life beyond the joy of the occasion. And one that seems to come when I most need to cultivate a little hope.
You can probably imagine that living and working as part of a community that owns hope as part of it’s name, I have spent a lot of time contemplating and grappling with the substance and habitat of hope. There is so much I could write (maybe hope part 2 nesting soon). But some of my favourite words that portray hope’s true essence are this:
Hope is like a bird that senses the dawn and carefully starts to sing while it is still dark.
How beautiful is that?!
My mornings thankfully in the present season usually begin when it is already light, and I start my days enjoying the most consistent luxury in my life; a cup of earl grey whilst sat in bed, the bedroom window ajar so I can breathe in the distinctively fresh aroma of a new beginning.
Some mornings I sit and stare. On others my brain starts to pick up pace leaping across the lists of to do giving me a chance to actually make some progress running through the day. But a few mornings ago now I sat turning over in my mind something I am finding really challenging at the moment. Like a monument plonked heavy and immovable as all I seem able to do is walk around it and view it from every angle, and it seems so unshifting. And the thing I said to God was, but God…..I’m not even sure if I should have hope that this thing will change.
And for about 5 seconds there was silence.
And then Hope flew in. I mean literally. A bird flew through the less-than-a-handspan gap in the bedroom window, sat on my windowsill and chirruped at me. And then it jumped along the window sill a little closer and hopped across to hang on the end of the curtain less than an arms reach away from where I was sat.
I have to confess that after the initial wonder my moment of euphoria started to fade into a vision of myself trying to safely usher a frightened frenzy of feathers back out again.
But it simply looked at me. Hopped back to the windowsill and then flew back out.
Leaving my heart a flutter and my cheeks squeezed from the smile of hope renewed and confidence restored.
I guess you could say that it was a lucky moment. Or coincidence. Or a miracle.
What are the odds of a bird flying through your bedroom window the only time in 40-ahem-something years at a precise moment in time where it has such significance?
I know that it was more than vain chance.
You see hope tied to circumstance is a fragile bond. But hope tethered to a God who cares, who is looking for ways to show us his kindness and his love is secure.
He probably won’t send you a bird. But he will talk to you in a language that you understand. And the first time it may seem like just a nice story. Like spotting wildlife on a bikeride through the English countryside. But if you reach across the space between you and God, where he is present and waiting for you, you will soon see and hear and know the ways he is reaching out to you. And you’ll have a thing going on. And when you have a thing going on you’ll find that you look forward to the next thing he sends you. And then hope flies in.