My Meemee had always told me that if you saw a Cardinal, it meant someone in heaven was watching over you. While I didn’t know much about heaven, hell, or God as a small girl, this little tale meant a lot to me.
The Red Bird symbolizes freedom, wisdom, and higher knowledge. I remember when I was a little girl, my Meemee and I would scatter birdseed along her uneven, old, rocky driveway. We lived in trailer at the time with a sweet little jacuzzi my grandparents had bought for us girls to play in during the summers. Everything was so simple and intricate all at once. I think I had the purest moments of my childhood in that old trailer home. Sometimes a Cardinal would come, a lot of times, it wouldn’t. My grandmother made such a beautiful deal about the appearance of one, that even today when I’ve been able to experience a glimpse of this bird, I can’t help but feel the purest form of joy, no matter how silly it sounds.
Before I knew the Lord, I think red birds were my hope, my saving grace, and a place of comfort. I think as humans we all need hope, whatever form it comes in. We take what we can get. When my father left, or my grandfather passed away, red birds always found their own way into my sorrow. Whether it was that day or a week later, the cardinals always came, and I always, always, always remembered my Meemee’s words in her calming, sweet voice. Call it what you’d like, but I whole heartedly believe Jesus knew I needed those birds. A sign that there is healing in the waiting, and an unspoken type of love in the broken. The love that can’t be bought.
Why am I doing The World Race Gap Year? Why am I leaving the country when I could be at home, getting ahead in receiving my bachelor’s degree, soaking up the sun with my girlfriends, enjoying just turning 20, saving up for a car-
Why?
I know that there is a child in South Africa that holds their hope in something. A bird they watch outside their home each day, listening for its tune, waiting for their return the next morning. A man in Cambodia looks up to the same star in their village every night, rattling his minds with questions that need answers. A woman in Ecuador, captured and admitted into the sex trade, holds onto a piece of cloth her mother gave her, she puts her hope, every ounce of what she is or whom she wishes to be into this torn away cloth.
If I never saw a red bird again, I’d still have the Hope of Jesus. Hope that these circumstances I’ve been given will never be the tape measure of my success or my happiness or how much love I give.
If the woman in Ecuador lost her mother’s cloth, if the man in Cambodia became blind and couldn’t see the stars, if the child in South Africa’s bird passes away, where is there Hope? What will they put their trust in next?
These children, these women, these fathers, these grandfathers- every single person I encounter I want to give the Love and Hope and Generosity of Jesus. Something so simplistic yet everlasting. So everlasting that it’s the only things that keeps me getting out of bed day after day. The world deserves to know everlasting Hope, no matter the cost. I am doing the Race because this universe yearns for Love. An undeserving Love that is created to be so beautifully and freely and organically given. My only prayer is having the honor to be this vessel- this Jesus driven catalyst.
