When I need a writing jolt, I often turn to Lisa-Jo’s Five Minute Friday writing prompt. Sometimes, a bit of free writing and a suggested theme is just the thing to shake the cobwebs loose. Nothing fancy. Nothing edited or belabored. Just writing for five minutes. Here you have it:
My office space has a window with a view, and every day, at exactly the same time, two birds land in my front yard, right outside my window. One bird is clearly the adult, and I’ve decided she’s a she. The other bird is younger, and I’ve decided the older bird, the girl, is this one’s mother. I’m no ornithologist, so I have no facts to back this up.
Anyway.
Every day, these birds land in my yard and they chirp, chirp, chirp. The younger bird follows the mother around and pecks at her back and squawks at her. “Listen,” I say to the little bird through the screen in my window. “Quit harassing your mom. Give her a break.”
Then, I watch as the mother bird calmly turns around and drops a fresh worm in the annoying chick’s beak. This calms the little bird down for a hot minute, and then that little bird is at it again — squawking and pecking the mother bird, and following her around, right under her feet.
I watch it every morning for one entire week before I realize I’m more like that little bird than I care to admit. Squawking around behind God with all my demands and neediness. And God is calm and patient with me. Feeding me and tending to my needs, despite my peskiness.
I also realize I tend to personify animals, and from my perch at my desk, with a screen between me and those two birds, I really have no idea just what’s going on between the two of them. But this I do know: I know God is patient with me. God cares for me. God tends to me. In spite of me.
What do you see outside your window?
