Life dishes up another lesson

Today I walked into a circular building I frequent. The stairs for these houses go down the side of the building and have fixed windows recessed into the wall for lighting.

When I walked in I heard a fluttering and saw a Brown Honeyeater (pictured) struggling to escape through the window. As I approached it got more and more frantic, and as it got more and more tired it kept bumping up against the window and falling until it was basically bouncing up and down on the sill of the window.

I was washing my bed linen, so I had a pillowcase handy and was able to capture the weakened bird in its folds. It was amazing, the bird ceased to struggle almost immediately once it was in darkness and its heart rate slowed perceptibly as I carried it to freedom and released it. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog entry.

I cannot help but think we can be a little like this poor bird. We can get ourselves so caught up in the one solution we see for a situation that we just keep butting up against it and tire ourselves with our striving.

Thankfully we have God and each other to release us from any thought that we have to solve everything for ourselves, but I do suspect I am one of those who has to absolutely be exhausted before I'm willing to accept help. One of the great things about having friends and being church is that we have people who look out for us and can help us spot when we're heading for trouble.