Song of Hope

This week our family has been blessed by a little visitor who brightens our mornings, and keeps us cheerful with his singing sometimes throughout the afternoon.... Each day has started with him sitting right outside our family room window in the crabapple tree

He sometimes puffs his feathers out in the cold morning chill....

but he doesn't seem to mind if we come close to watch, listen....or take his picture. He sits there on his perch, and sings his heart out.

He has reminded me of one of my favorite poems:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

--Emily Dickinson

And one of my favorite hymns:

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,

When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,

I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

What a tremendous gift that little bird has shared with our family this week....I will close now, as I continue humming......

I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free! His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me......