Nature's consolation...

     This morning I came downstairs at sunrise, made my coffee, sat on the loveseat in my dining room, gazing out of the bay window overlooking the woods of our side yard like I always do. There, the natural life of the early morning peeps out to start the day.
     This is where I, too, begin each day, and say my prayers for the morning.
     This morning, I asked God for something that I don't usually do, but I've had an emotional time of it lately, and so I asked for a small sign of His consolation. Of course, I qualified it to the Lord, saying that I was not testing Him, but was in need of just a little of his supernatural comfort in my very natural world.
     Suddenly, I looked down, and there was an unsual bird, just sitting on a fallen limb on the ground. Unusual, in that it wasn't a robin, or a cardinal. It was a plain taupey-greyish bird that looked a little like a pigeon.
     No offense God, but I was kind of hoping for a happy little yellow finch, or a graceful blue bird.
     That's okay. I sat and studied this bird anyway. It sat there for a very long time... longer than I did... barely moving except to leave a little goodie on the grass beneath it. Nature. Still okay. God knows what He is doing.
     The more I studied it, the more I thought it was beautiful in its stillness and its simplicity.
     Of course, I had to know what kind of bird this was. I had seen it before, and I knew it wasn't really a pigeon. So what was it? I consulted my wildlife book, and found it.
     It was a mourning dove.
     Not a morning dove, but a mourning dove.
     Providing me with some peace and joy in the stillness of the morning... and the mourning. For as long as I needed it.
     God does indeed know what He is doing.

Other birds I have seen in my side yard today: blue jays, cardinals, robins, white-throated sparrows, and black-capped chickadees. The mourning dove has gone on its way...