Worth More

Photo found on the internet

As I walked my favorite walk this morning along the path beside Garrison Creek, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a little blob on the pathway. I had stepped past it, but it then registered with my brain as looking like one of those specimens that I used to watch my mom dissect when she was doing her work as a pathologist.  Hmm, I thought, and turned to look more closely at the tissue on the ground.

It was a little naked baby bird lying spread-eagled on its back, tiny wing projections out to each side, head back and beak pointed up, the opposite direction from its tail. Dead.

I felt so sad for this tiny lump of tissue and bone, for the loss, for the unrealized potential, for the life gone. Gone. Is not the loss of life the greatest tragedy?

Then the song started up in my head, going around and around, singing with the childish voice of my memory from church:

God sees the little sparrow fall,

It meets His tender view;

If God so loves the little birds,

I know He loves me, too.

He loves me, too, He loves me, too,

I know He loves me, too;

Because He loves the little things,

I know He loves me, too.

Getting home, I looked up the words of Jesus, because phrases from Him had joined the refrain in my head:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? 

Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 

And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 

So don’t be afraid; 

you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:29-31

This little bird I had found? God already knew about it. And cared. And me, walking this creekside path this morning, thinking about my own concerns and worries? He cares for me, too. He even sees me as "worth more than many sparrows."

He knows all about the losses and hurts in my own life. He is saddened by those, far more than I was saddened over the death a tiny just-hatched, helpless little bird. Jesus said my Father is awfully fond of me. Jesus said my Father knows me in a deeply personal, "down-to-my hairs knowing" that I can't even begin to fathom. He cares that way about you, too.

I'd say that's good news.