It was great to be around everyone but she needed just a moment of silence to catch her breath and to take in all that was happening. Everyone was here in honour of her grandmother who was 90 years old today. She saw so many faces that she hadn’t seen in while and her face hurt from smiling so hard. Truly she was happy to be in the midst of all these amazing people but her heart wasn’t in it, not today
She found an empty pathway down the hall, opened the door and snuck into the room. Then she let out the breath that she had been holding in and her shoulders loosened as she locked the door and lay down on the bed. She curled up in her favourite position holding her body closely as she grabbed her knees and tucked her head down in foetal position.
Then the tears began to flow. It was like a wellspring inside of her that she couldn’t turn off. She didn’t want to turn it off. It was hurting so badly on her insides but somehow as the tears flowed she felt herself letting go, just a little bit. Then it came. The voice she didn’t want to hear but couldn’t stop lately. It kept asking her questions but in a way that sounded like it was her very own voice. “Why me? What did I do to deserve this” “ am I not a good person?” “ how can this be happening”, with every question she felt the situation becoming more and more helpless. She instinctively put her hands over her ears as if doing so could stop the thoughts from invading her. But the thoughts were not coming from outside, now they were coming from within. She was wishing she could turn back the hands of time and do everything differently. But what could she do to change what the doctor’s report said to her. Then more questions came as doubt and blame began to settle in.
“If only I had gone to the doctors sooner and paid more attention to the signals my body was giving to me, maybe then I wouldn’t be facing this.” “Maybe I should have asked for more tests at my physical last year?”, “ I’m not ready to die yet” and finally the question she really wanted answered “ Doesn’t God love me? what have I done to deserve this?”
A sense and a feeling of hopelessness entered the room and settled on her like a blanket covering over her. She closed her eyes and decided to just sleep underneath this feeling as she was drained, tired and feeling unloved. Just a few minutes of rest and she would get up and join the people that had come to celebrate.
She had almost dozed off when she heard a thud at the window. It sounded like something had hit the window pane and had fallen. She got up and opened the screen , then slid the glass pane open. Looking down she saw a bird that had fallen onto the rose bush just outside the window. It was brightly coloured and very unusual looking. It almost looked tropical but the color of its wings were the most vivid forms of light. The bird was obviously injured from its recent collision with the clear glass. She was not an animal lover, didn’t even like having pets, but her heart was huge and she couldn’t leave the injured bird there to die or even worse be found by an unknown predator. She grabbed the table covering off of the dresser and scooped up the lifeless looking bird into her hands and the moment she did this the most bizarre thing began to happen. Colors of light started shooting everywhere, they were so bright and brilliant that everything became blurry around her and she became dizzy and started falling backwards. She felt the sensation of falling backwards but again this was weird because she never hit the ground, she just kept falling. As she opened her eyes she realized she wasn’t falling at all but that she was floating. Her body had become light and as she looked down at herself she saw that she was covered with bright coloured feathers, the same feathers that were on the fallen bird. The bird? Where was the bird? Where was she?
She was no longer in the room and she no longer felt all the same emotions and feelings that she had a minute ago. Her eyesight was becoming clearer and she could see past all the colours now and there just a short distance from her head was the bird flying just above her. Flying? A minute ago this bird was lifeless and injured, now it seemed healthy, alive and vibrant. But where was she? What had just happened?
The bird began singing the most beautiful heavenly song. That was the only way to describe it. And as it sang her heart began to beat rapidly. With every beat she could understand the words that were being sung.
“ Hope is my name, Hope is my name,
And I have been sent to you this very day.
Nothing could stop me, or get in my way
For heaven has heard you, the moment you prayed.”
The sounds that filled her being now caused the coloured feathers that were around her body to begin to float together creating a sort of canopy around her and the bird she now knew as “Hope”.
Then she heard a majestic booming voice say these words “ Faith is the substance of things hoped for The evidence of things not seen” then she heard “Without hope there is no faith”
In an instant she remembered her prayer to God. It was right after the doctor visit as she sat in the car trying to put together the words that had just been spoken to her. She didn’t know what else to do but she remembered what her grandmother had taught her all those years. So she bowed her head and said a prayer to God to please help her to have faith.
Faith? What was she really asking for? Faith for what? To believe that she could be healed ? To believe that God really loved her and that He didn’t want her to die? Faith to remove this awful death sentence that had been placed over her life? Faith for a miracle? Yes she wanted faith to believe all of these things.
The bird began to sing again, or maybe Hope had never stopped singing but she was tuning in again to understand the words being sung.
“Hope in the colors of spring,
Hope in the joy that I bring,
Hope when you cant see anything
Hope is the song that I sing”
There was something special in the words in those lyrics that spoke to her about new life and creation. It brought revelation and understanding beyond what her natural mind could comprehend. She knew that in order to see the things the way they truly were that she would have to grab a hold of this gift of Hope. She reached out and for the second time she put her hands delicately around this fluttering creature that she dared not to call a bird.
As her hands grabbed a hold of “Hope” all the color that was imbedded in the wings of this supernatural creature was now coming into her hands and surrounding her body and filling her with the greatest feeling of knowing, a sense that everything was the way it should be. Instantly she knew that God was in control and that He loved her and had a plan for her life. Everything changed in that moment she now was the sum of the total and not the end of a beginning. Then she heard the bells ringing ,large church bells tolling as if they were chiming out the time. She closed her eyes and tried to focus as she didn’t want to let go of this new sensation that was tingling all over her body... hope. But the sound of the bells was jolting her and she began to float again.
Suddenly she opened her eyes and she was back in the room on the bed and the telephone was ringing, probably a guest calling for directions. She lay there for a brief moment wondering if what she had just experienced was nothing more than a simple day dream. As she sat up on the bed something floated out of her hand and instinctively she grabbed at it.
It was a feather, a beautiful multi coloured feather laying in the palm of her right hand.
It answered all of her questions, but greater than that was how she now felt and what she now knew. She knew that He who took care of the birds of the air, loved and valued her so much and she could trust Him to take care of her too.
With that she jumped up off the bed, took a tissue and wiped her face, breathed in a deep breath and as she unlocked the door she purposed in her heart to go back to the festivities and to celebrate today with Hope, Love, and Faith.
Charmaine Hinds September 2012
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