I spy with my little eye

Personal Photo: Bald Eagle

Ah, I take a deep breath, I close my eyes, and I let the sunshine wash over my face with the first few minutes of downtime in far too long. This week I have spent in Tennessee and, after not being able to come visit Tennessee much in 2021 because of my wedding, work schedule, etc., it felt quite nice to be able to take the time here to slow down and take a moment to appreciate the simplicity of my life while I am here. This morning, my mom and I were sitting out on the balcony with our tea and coffee and we were watching the lake. Something about being able to see the blueness of the water and the lush green trees helps me connect to the pieces of my soul that get so easily lost in the busyness of the day to day. While we were enjoying the morning sun and the quiet time before the day demands attention, we were visited by a majestic sight: a bald eagle. The beautiful creature seemed to fly circles around us, in vision and out of vision, with its stark white head and tail, marking the purest form of freedom. Such a recognizable bird, it was a blessing to be able to see it, and even a bigger blessing to see it more than once during the morning. I even had my camera with me and could snap a few photos of the eagle in flight that I could look back through a little later.

After a bit, the sun was heating up and Mom and I scooched our chairs back to stay in the shade for a few minutes longer before we had to go back inside and begin working on what we needed to get done. All of a sudden, we see a bird dart into sight and fly towards the top of the sky and glide around. I snapped photos of it, and we had the treat of seeing the bird call while we heard the screech. The next few things happened in an instant; the bird, which we later identified as a Cooper’s Hawk, went into a stoop, and crashed against a Red-Tailed Hawk near the tree line. I got some photos of the Cooper’s Hawk in its stoop and some of the Red-Tailed Hawk after their collision, but just being able to witness the event was such a breathtaking experience in and of itself.

Personal Photo: Cooper's Hawk in a stoop

Personal Photo: Red-Tailed Hawk

I was awestruck after seeing such an aviary show this morning. It got me thinking about how easily I could have missed it. I could have had my eyes closed, been checking emails on my phone, been inside, etc. If I was not looking, I never would have been able to appreciate the spectacle. I began to consider how this really applies to our blessings. How many blessings do we miss out on because we are focused on something else? How many times do we adjust what we focus on to get something done, to move onto the next task, to be efficient?

Focus. What a challenging thing to ponder. How do we choose what to focus on in our lives? We are pulled in so many different directions and they demand us to focus on every piece. Our work, our school, our sports, our relationships, etc. all require focus to be able to perform the best we can. It is so easy to let it slip away from us. When we focus on these things, we can get caught up in them and they can be the only things that we pay attention to in our lives. When this happens, it makes me wonder what we miss, what we fail to appreciate, and what we neglect.

We see hundreds of blessings every day; they can be found in the world around us, in the simple truth that it could always be worse, in the big moments and in the small, in the quiet pieces of our lives, in the healing and in the pain, and in so many more places. It can be easy to lose focus on these blessings for a multitude of reasons. We could have a bad day at work, lose a friend, be in a fight, miss someone, be going through the growing pains of life, be confused or overwhelmed or anxious. These are all natural, human emotions that can blur the sight of anything else around us. We all do it, we all can connect through experiencing these feelings and being patient in our navigation of them, and we can all understand how they consume us at the time. I think it is really hard to keep ourselves in check when we are working through these things, but the whole thing really comes down to focus. What are we focusing on during these times?

A previous pastor at our church did a sermon on this concept and he used the following example: we have a large stained-glass cross at the front of our church; it is lovely and it lets the light brighten the colors and enhance the room. He told us to hold one of our hands close to our face. The hand represents our problems, our responsibilities, all earthly things. When the hand is close to our face, we cannot see the cross, because all we can focus on is what is right in front of us. However, when we back the hand away from our face, we can see the cross, we can see how much bigger the cross is than our problems, and we can focus on Christ’s light. I think this directly applies to my point of being able to take a step back and focus on our blessings. The cross was blocked when we focused on our hands and the light from the cross was not able to get to our eyes. We could not see God or how He worked in our lives. In this way, we lost focus on who was in control, where the blessings were coming from, and we could not connect to the cross because our earthly problems were in between us and Him.

As mentioned earlier, I could have so easily missed the eagle, Cooper’s Hawk, and Red-Tailed Hawk if I was focused on the heat of the sun, something else that I needed to do, or just plain had my eyes closed. But because I took a moment to step away and step back from all the things that usually keep me moving from one thing to the next, I was able to appreciate a blessing that I normally would not have seen. I was looking for it, I was watching the sky after the bald eagle, I was paying attention to the space around me and admiring the way the God created this beautiful place. I told this story to hopefully convey that we all need to do this. It does not have to be an eagle or a hawk, but any blessing that connects us to God. One blessing leads to another and once we see one, we can understand how to pay attention to it and how to search for the next one. If we know what to look for, we can know what to focus on and we can see the cross amidst our problems and emotions. Our bad days are just sprinkled throughout so many good ones, we might have been late to protect us from a car accident or something worse, our tough times help us appreciate the better times and pay more attention to the moments of peace. We can focus on the blessings around us and find the power of God is stronger than anything else we might have gotten lost in.

I hope that throughout all the hustle and bustle of our lives we can remind ourselves to take a step back, to pull our problems, responsibilities, distractions, etc. away from right in front of us and we can focus on the grandness of the cross and how He blesses and works on and with us throughout all of it. God’s grace is abundant and almighty and I never want to lose the wonder of how He communicates to us, how He shows us His love, how He continues to weave His influence and power throughout everything we see and experience. It is truly a glorious way for us to connect with our Father and when we focus on Him, everything else will fall into place and we will be able rely on His navigation instead of ours. It all begins with what we are paying attention to and what part of our soul we are feeding. I don’t want to miss a blessing by focusing on something else and I pray that we can all be able to adjust the lens on our lives to be able to see the might and grace and love of God.