A friend of mine described the migratory habits of birds: the flocks that may linger for weeks, waiting for a window of clear weather, before attempting a non-stop flight of 1500 miles over water. He asked, “How do they know the weather will be clear?”
Well, Someone knows.
And while he was asking questions, my friend added one more. Why do birds do that? Why do they live in two places, and fly back and forth every year?
“Why do they do that?” I thought. And then I realized: I do that too. Perhaps I am not an odd duck; perhaps I’m part of the God-design, with my own elegant arcs traced across the map every year.
Because oh, have I traveled! Already in the month since I left Jerusalem, I’ve logged 8,000 miles by plane and car (and I’m looking forward to a train ride tomorrow). In this month, I’ve slept in five states and traveled through something like seven more. I’ve attended two weddings, a convention, and a funeral, climbed a mountain, met my cousin’s little daughter, and seen green trees turn to autumn.
And oh! Have I seen that Someone (the One who knows the habits of migratory birds) at work.
You see, as soon as my baby sister got engaged this spring, I began to pray for a way to attend her wedding in late September. And by the end of August (pretty much the eleventh hour), I bought a ticket!
Now, nine days isn’t long enough to convince my emotions that I’m about to see my family, but that’s all I had before I flew home. And by “flying home,” I do not mean sitting at the seaside like those birds, waiting for a break in the weather. I mean watching the news for what war might do to the airports. I mean pulling up stakes in my heart. (How can I leave just when things are getting hard?)
I mean one epically long day doing this: packing to the busy, happy hum of Feast of Trumpets eve in the homes around mine, and running down flights of stairs with heavy bags to catch the mid-night shuttle. Waiting bravely in the airport while I was nearly bumped out of my flight, only to cry at the kindness of the agent who waved me to the head of the line. Taking wing at dawn. Giving my own “most beautiful airport” award to Madrid, hearing Hebrew in the seats on the plane, and standing on American sidewalk to see my sister driving up! Tea in the city, and sleep in my own small town.
In my home-adventures, I see Someone’s arrangements all over the place. When I crashed a friend’s wedding — and spent the ceremony one floor down, part of a God-assembled team to put her reception into place, captivated by the thought that a new family was being born so simply, just above my head.
When a college-student friend just “happened” to be headed from wedding one to wedding two (my sister’s), an 18-hour drive away — and wanted company for the trip.
When my aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings gradually gathered, melding into one happy team of wedding prep and providing a glimpse into the kingdom of heaven with the love God gave through and to us the week we married off my baby sister.
(It didn’t matter that it rained; it only added a sense of adventure. It didn’t matter that the bride kicked off her shoes, or that she and her daddy were wet from standing in the rain waiting for their cue. The groom still grinned a face-splitting smile of sheer joy).
Next I’d planned a westward trip to see a friend: a trip I longed for, but just couldn’t agree to do. This trip I was puzzlingly held back from taking…and the stop we made on the way back home from the wedding: these seemingly small details later meant a lot.
They meant I saw my uncle five days before he suddenly died. They meant I wasn’t halfway across the country when the other side of my family gathered for his funeral. In their teamwork and loving, this time for an altogether different occasion, I glimpsed the kingdom of heaven all over again. (Although, you know, as I sat there in that wildflower-decked church, and my uncle was borne up the aisle, it was a bit like a wedding: knowing he had already enjoyed his first look at his King).
So yes, His eye is on the sparrow, and how much more it has been on me! That He knows when I should stay — and the very moment I should go (and why, before I even have a clue) is one of the most comforting things I know.
You have kept count of my wanderings.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me… (Psalm 56:8; 139:2-4,9-10)
Elisabeth Adams 