Every spring with the arrival of the birds, the blooms, and the butterflies, my mother finds her self in the midst of a battle for our front porch. Every year there is a pair of robins that think that the boxing on our front porch would make a great place to build a nest and raise their young. Could you blame them, there is plenty of shelter and when the April rains come what mother would want to sit out on a nest protecting her young from the driving rain if there was a place available where both mother and young could ride out the storm in perfect safety.
Now don’t get me wrong, we love robins. They are so neat to watch as they flirt with each other in mid air tumbles. The kids love to see them pulling mile long earth worms out of the front lawn. It is a wonder to watch as the mother robin grows fat with her eggs just before she lays them in their nest which is constructed out of grass and straw and lined with a strong floor of mud. Robins provide a great opportunity for the kids to witness the wonder of new life, a wonder that is not in short supply in the south central Pennsylvania spring.
There is a down side to this story though and it is this that causes a never ending battle to be fought between my mother and this mother robin. She loves the birds and loves seeing the little ones learning to fly and look for worms in our front yard, what she doesn’t like is the mess. It is inevitable; all babies from little birds to little boys and girls make messes. This mess gets all over our front porch is what causes my mother to constantly tear out the robin’s nest as they persist in building it over and over again on our front porch.
I decided that I wanted to see if I could do something to end this constant spring strife. There must be a way to help the robins build a sheltered nest but have that nest not be on our front porch. Robins are not bird house birds. The are to big to fit through holes and God didn’t make them with that desire any way so building a standard bird house would not do any good. I thought maybe I could build a house that offered everything that the boxing on our front porch offered just in a smaller package. I got an idea of what I wanted it to look like. It needed a box of some sort, open on the top but shallow enough that the nest would be held securely and the mother would still be able to look out and watch for dangers. The box also needed a roof, a roof that could keep the wind and the rain that got on the nest to a minimum. Lastly the box needed lost of open room between the next box and the roof to allow the robin to enter and exit the nest from every direction. I took these considerations and began to build the robin box below.
It looked great. I figured that this would be the prefect solution. We would get to experience the robins and all of the wonder that they bring to the front yard and my mothers porch would not be messed up by the babies. There was only one more thing to consider, location. Where should I place this new house? I knew that the robins like our yard and I knew that we wanted to be able to see the miracle of new life unfold. This meant that house needed to be close, also the robins needed to be in our yard which was prime worm real-estate.
I found a tree that is close to our front porch and placed the house at about the same height as our boxing. I then took the latest attempt at a nest from the corner of our porch and placed it the new house. I waited several days and began to think that my plan had not worked. I decided to climb up the tree and see what was up. Much to my surprise I found that there was a wonderful little nest securely built in the safety of my little house. A few days later there were four little blue eggs in that nest. Soon there will be four little robins crying for worms and learning to fly right there in our front yard.
It is so neat to look out from the porch and see that mother robin sitting there on her eggs, keeping them warm until they hatch. It is so cool to be a part of the front yard miracle. Now it got me to thinking. An experience like this can not be with out spiritual parallels. Somewhere in this story had to be a lesson for me about who God is and how He works in our lives. Something as cool this always comes with deeper lessons for us.
I thought how often are we like the robin? We think we have it figured out, we know exactly what we want and even though something keeps us from pursuing or plans we continue to bang our head against the wall because we can’t imagine anything better. Those robins wanted a nest in our front porch, it was the perfect spot, but no matter how often they built their nest it was always torn down. I thought of how often in my life I have tried and tried to attain something and God just wouldn’t let me get it. He held me back and I couldn’t understand why. He continually tore down my nest.
That is the nature of God, His plans are not our plans and his purposes are not ours. He doesn’t leave us hanging though. The whole time we are building our nest and fighting with him He in his wisdom is preparing a place for us. Just as I made a house for the robin, one that was completely good and worked for all of us, so God never stops working at preparing a place and a work for us to do.
We have to keep our eyes open. Those robins could have continued to build their nest on our porch and my mother would have kept tearing it down, but they saw what I had done, they realized that this new house would be perfect for them. We have to do that very same thing, we don’t just stop building and wait to hear but we do need to keep our eyes open and learn to recognize when God has perfectly prepared a place for us.
I guess that it is a lesson that I am continually learning in this phase of my life. I am seeking God’s plans for me, looking and pursuing but also waiting to see where He in His infinite goodness and wisdom has prepared a place for me. Sometimes it is hard, I think I might have finally figured it out and then I see my nest torn down. In these robins though I have found a tid-bit of heavenly wisdom, God is working and preparing and when He has my place ready, as long as I am still looking, He will show it to me and it will be perfect.
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