This week we are very busy preparing for our annual school of ministry. I wanted to bless you with some of my favorite Blogs and Articles. I pray you enjoyed Dandelions yesterday and this one today. Both of these are some of my favorites. I will be back on Monday with some more interesting tidbits from my own life.
Now here is Allison Allen with "Building A Nest".
It was a hot mess. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. (I am speaking about my front porch.)
Every morning I opened my home’s door to find it strewn with various bits of detritus. Chunks of Styrofoam. Bits of netting. Straggle-y sticks and stalks. By the end of the day said trash would disappear, which I chalked up to a good, stiff breeze. This mystery continued for several days until, finally, it dawned upon my toddler-addled brain to look up. And there it was: the beginnings of a nest. A really ugly nest.
Precariously perched in a small corner a mama bird was hard at work building a place to have her young. Her progress was not what one might call pristine or promising. Certainly not pretty. But she did not stop, and, eventually, she made something of a topsy-turvy home in which to lay her eggs.
I wondered what in the Sam Hill would cause a bird to build upon such a small, hidden eave, when anywhere else would have taken so much less work. Our front yard is full of perfectly good trees, ready-made for nest-building. However, I also saw that our neighborhood was full of mockingbirds, those aggressive birds that will dive-bomb the head of anything human, avian, or otherwise. This robin-mama wasn’t looking for pretty or easy. She was looking for protected, sturdy, safe. She was looking for close and hidden. And she was willing to do the awkward, messy work of creating that kind of home for her chicks.
All this reminds me of Psalm 84:3, where the writer cries out: Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar.
It strikes me that the bird (and the psalmist who wants to be like the bird) is desperate to build a nest near God’s altar. Close. Tucked in. Intimate. And it amazes me that Psalm 84 says God welcomes the messy process of his people (like birds) bringing the bits and pieces of who they are, strewing the altar with the trash, because, well, because He’d rather have us close and messy, than far away and pristine. Intimacy, like nest-building, is messy. But it is so well worth the mess. Especially when what you end up with is a nesting place nearer to God than you could have ever imagined. I’ve never wanted to be more bird-brained in all my life.
Copyright © Allison Allen, Storyboard 2015, All Rights Reserved.
For three years (2007-2009), Allison Allen experienced the joy of being a Women of Faith dramatist. She counts walking the same platform as the Women of Faith “porch-pals” among one of the profound honors of her life. Prior to that, Allison performed the hand-jive in the Broadway revival of Grease over 650 times. Currently, she loves weaving Biblical teaching and acting pieces together in unexpected ways, and is over the moon to teach at conferences and retreats around the country. You can read more from Allison in the Loved by God Devotional and on Facebook atfacebook.com/AllisonAllenspeaks
Now here is Allison Allen with "Building A Nest".
It was a hot mess. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. (I am speaking about my front porch.)
Every morning I opened my home’s door to find it strewn with various bits of detritus. Chunks of Styrofoam. Bits of netting. Straggle-y sticks and stalks. By the end of the day said trash would disappear, which I chalked up to a good, stiff breeze. This mystery continued for several days until, finally, it dawned upon my toddler-addled brain to look up. And there it was: the beginnings of a nest. A really ugly nest.
Precariously perched in a small corner a mama bird was hard at work building a place to have her young. Her progress was not what one might call pristine or promising. Certainly not pretty. But she did not stop, and, eventually, she made something of a topsy-turvy home in which to lay her eggs.
I wondered what in the Sam Hill would cause a bird to build upon such a small, hidden eave, when anywhere else would have taken so much less work. Our front yard is full of perfectly good trees, ready-made for nest-building. However, I also saw that our neighborhood was full of mockingbirds, those aggressive birds that will dive-bomb the head of anything human, avian, or otherwise. This robin-mama wasn’t looking for pretty or easy. She was looking for protected, sturdy, safe. She was looking for close and hidden. And she was willing to do the awkward, messy work of creating that kind of home for her chicks.
All this reminds me of Psalm 84:3, where the writer cries out: Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar.
It strikes me that the bird (and the psalmist who wants to be like the bird) is desperate to build a nest near God’s altar. Close. Tucked in. Intimate. And it amazes me that Psalm 84 says God welcomes the messy process of his people (like birds) bringing the bits and pieces of who they are, strewing the altar with the trash, because, well, because He’d rather have us close and messy, than far away and pristine. Intimacy, like nest-building, is messy. But it is so well worth the mess. Especially when what you end up with is a nesting place nearer to God than you could have ever imagined. I’ve never wanted to be more bird-brained in all my life.
Copyright © Allison Allen, Storyboard 2015, All Rights Reserved.
For three years (2007-2009), Allison Allen experienced the joy of being a Women of Faith dramatist. She counts walking the same platform as the Women of Faith “porch-pals” among one of the profound honors of her life. Prior to that, Allison performed the hand-jive in the Broadway revival of Grease over 650 times. Currently, she loves weaving Biblical teaching and acting pieces together in unexpected ways, and is over the moon to teach at conferences and retreats around the country. You can read more from Allison in the Loved by God Devotional and on Facebook atfacebook.com/AllisonAllenspeaks
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