I watched a sparrow die today.
It’s been a summer of endings. High school. My relationship with my (now ex-)boyfriend. Band. Bible studies with my wonderful youth pastor. Wednesday night drives to Dairy Queen with secret-sharing on the way home. As the summer ebbs, so dwindle the days left with the people here who mean so much to me, living at home, having my own room.
Today was another “last”- the last meeting of my Impact group, composed of all the girls in my grade at church. Our leader of the past two years is a wonderfully wise and kind woman whose home is down the road from mine. Due to our collective busy-ness, this meeting was both the first of the summer and the last of the group’s existence.
I was the first to arrive. Anneliese, the daughter of my leader and hostess, showed me a baby sparrow they had found at the side of the road. The tiny thing’s legs were limp, and its beak opened and closed soundlessly but ate nothing.
“I think it’s dying,” said Lydia. “I had some baby chicks once. One was doing that panting thing and then it died.”
Even so, we gently placed it in a basket on top of a t-shirt of Anne’s. We offered it a worm or, upon discovering that sparrows do not eat worms, some bread crumbs. It merely sat, its chest heaving.
Other girls arrived, and as we seated ourselves in the living room with chunks of watermelon and peanut butter cookies, I forgot about the sparrow.
Two hours passed. I sat pen in hand as we soaked up as many final drops of wisdom as possible.
- The way to lead a blessed life is to seek God with all your heart. Communicate with Him- read His word, pray. Look for Him in people. (Ps. 119:2)
- Keep your way pure. Even if you’re going to a Bible school, there will always be temptation even if it’s “just” to gossip, be critical, or worry. (Ps. 119:9)
- When you make a mistake, admit it and take it to heart, but don’t go on grieving about it. The joy of the Lord is your strength! (Nehemiah 8)
- Don’t spend your life waiting to live it. Don’t let the future be a stumbling block.
- God has given you His ear- so call on Him! (Ps. 116:2)
- A life well-lived is more about who you are than what you do. Maybe I’d like to meet someone who plays the flute really well. But if they’re not a nice person, I wouldn’t want to have a relationship with them, to be friends, to spend time. It’s who they are that counts.
And so on.
Eventually we moved outside. Green grass tickled our feet as we stretched out on beach towels under a tree, just a few feet from the corn field marking the yard’s border. The sun warmed our skin when it found its way through the branches. The sparrow, having caused a minor distraction when we’d traipsed out through the back porch, was now nestled unobtrusively in the grassy center of our circle.
We discussed our fears concerning college, exchanged advice that had been given to us, and wondered aloud about the contents of our hazy, distant futures.
In the midst of our talk, the sparrow stopped breathing.
We grew silent, simply gazing at this small shell of a creature whose life had just ended.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Matthew 10:29
God saw and cared about the death of this small, funny-looking thing with feathers, whose life had been perhaps a few days long, who had been noticed by humans only because Lydia had gone running along a certain road that morning, whose life had no meaning or impact... only it did.
You see, we are always stewing over our stories. God may be timeless and live eternally in the present, but I think that we humans live almost entirely in the future while here on earth. We discuss it and worry about it and try to manipulate it, prepare for it, foresee it. As we get ready to enter adulthood (sort of) and leave for college, it’s nearly all we can think about. And after endless conversations, advice, encouraging verses.... it was the witnessing of this sparrow’s fall that fixed firmly into my head a peace and comfort.
If even something so small is important in God’s eyes, and if something so inconsequential can be an Event... well, what does that say about me?
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. There is Someone who is going to make Something out of my life.
