A CARDINAL TRUTH
In Everything Give Thanks
A story shared with me at breakfast recently.
Do you have any landmark verses – truths God taught you during your journey of faith? Let me tell you about one of mine. It was 1985; my husband and I had just retired from overseas service.
At dawn one morning, the sound of knocking woke me up. I said to my husband, “Something’s knocking on our window.” “It’s a red bird, a cardinal,” he said. I jumped up, opened the front door, and shooed the cardinal away. “Go back to your own house in the woods,” I called. The bird flew to a nearby tree, squawking and scolding but returned when I went back indoors. To my dismay, this routine continued.
Meanwhile, we needed jobs and a place to live. We were ten years short of qualifying for Social Security. Where should we settle? Did we have any marketable skills? Who would hire retired missionaries in their fifties? Thirst for guidance was growing.
One morning after the cardinal’s reveille, I curled up on the couch with my Bible. Verses I’d memorized as a teenager trickled into my mind. “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” The words of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 convicted me. I sensed that God had sent the cardinal to remind me to say thanks. So I said, with a tinge of sarcasm, “Thanks, Lord, for that stupid bird.” I replayed our recent months In my mind. I remembered that we had had to flee two countries with nothing and start over. God had always provided all we needed in the next place. The next time that cardinal tapped on my window, I thanked God for reminding me how he had provided.
Thanksgiving is a time when we are encouraged to take time to go to our house of worship and thank God for the many ways he meets us when we are thirsty. Maybe we are not thirsty for water but we could be thirsty for love, for affirmation, for safety. Thanksgiving is a time to bring those thirsts to God. Maybe a cardinal won’t remind you but perhaps there is something else that reminds you that God hears your prayers.
That sounds like the end of my story. But I have to add a tad. Age-related Macular Degeneration, has made it mighty hard to read and write stories and play the piano – two of my favorite things to do. Updating this story has reminded me again to say, “Thanks. Lord” for those pesky “cardinals of life” remindIng me to bring my thirsts to you.
On the Way to Wonder 