Letting our Hearts Ache

During an after school trip to Target last week, my girls and I watched a sparrow fly in through the automatic doors and flutter around in the entry way.

“Mama, look!” My littlest pointed toward the doors. “There’s a bird INSIDE the building!”

And sure enough, she was still inside, flying with all the crazy and passion a wild animal has who is too close to people. “How’s she gonna get out?” She wondered out loud.

I gathered my bags and my purse from the checkout counter and the three of us made our way toward the ruckus to get to the parking lot.

And as birds do when frightened, that sparrow flew head-first, wing-first into the glass at the front of the store. And then she fell to the ground just inside the door.

A small crowd gathered near the small bird and we stopped to watch.

“Mama, we have to help it.” My oldest looked on with pain between her eyes.

The bird had broken a wing and there were others around trying to get it into some kind of a makeshift-box. I just shook my head. There was a woman nearby who had taken it into her hands.

“The woman is going to help it, sweetheart.” I took my daughter’s hand, my shopping weighing down the other. And I knew that even if the bird somehow made it into that woman’s warm kitchen with a soft washcloth beneath it, it would probably die anyway. It made me sad: that life hurts us like that. That life hurts small frightened birds like that. And it made me sad that my daughters wanted to help but we three were powerless to fix what had been wronged.

And then I heard Jesus’ words in my heart. That doesn’t happen very often so when it does, I take notice. Loud and clear I heard and then I opened my mouth to speak them to my daughters as we crossed the parking lot at the end of a January day.

“Did you know that not a single sparrow falls to the ground that God doesn’t know about? He probably knows the name of that little sparrow and He will take care of her.”

And my heart ached as I spoke. Because there are some things we can change in this world. We can live out the kingdom today and affect the people around us. We can advocate for the orphan, the sick, the ones without protectors. We can speak out for the enslaved and the impoverished, and I hope that I am teaching my children that with my life. We can do these things and we should.

But there are some things we cannot change. And those are the things that break me. The little bird that I cannot heal. The hearts and minds of the wounded that I cannot do anything about. The secret, small (and big) things that only God knows of. These are where we must leave Him to work and be His hands and feet when we can, and when we cannot? Well, I guess we let our heart break.

And as long as we stay soft, stay open to the ache, He is able to then work through us during the times when we CAN help change a thing.

But it’s hard {oh so hard} to let our hearts ache.