Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Seagulls

We recently returned from a long 15 day road trip to California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and many other states.  My favorite part of the trip was our drive up the coastline in California and Oregon on Highway 1.  The views are amazing... the cliffs are steep... the road is treacherous... but it's so beautiful!  You can look to the left and see the beautiful ocean and look to the right and see grand mountains... all God's wonderful creation.

On our second day of traveling up this highway, we saw some beautiful seagulls.  Now, the seagulls we have on the Texas coast are pretty small.  The seagulls in California are HUGE!  They are the size of a small German Shepherd.  I took photos of some beautiful birds.

As we drove, we would pull over into some turnouts to take a better look at the views.  At one of these turnouts, as we were taking pictures, someone else pulled over and dumped out a big load of birdseed to feed the gulls.  The problem was, they dumped it out very close to the highway.  So as the birds were eating, there wasn't enough room for this group of birds to all eat at the same time, and a couple of the birds started to walk backward to get out of the way of other birds.  One bird walked backward right into the lane of traffic in the highway, and a car came around the corner and hit him.  It was the most horrible sound and sight.  And as the car left the bird in the roadway, I thought he was dead.  But no ... the bird tried to get up and walk away, but he wasn't fast enough, a truck came up next and ran over him with his tires.


I was a little relieved actually because I thought, "Okay, he's dead now.  He won't suffer anymore."  But that wasn't the case.  Again, the bird tried to get up with great determination, but he was too injured and just fell back down into the roadway.

By this time, I was completely in tears and the boys were horrified at seeing all of this transpire.  A man pulled over into the pull out and ran over to him, picked him up by his feet and carried him over to the guardrail and placed him on a rock just beyond the rail.  The bird didn't make any attempt at escape.  He was dying.

I glanced over at the pile of birdseed, expecting to see a swarm of birds eating away.  But there were no birds eating.  Not one bird was eating from the huge pile of seed.  I looked up into the sky, and saw that every single gull from this group was in the air, flying in a circular pattern and screaming out.  They were circling the dying gull.  They were mourning his loss.  They didn't want to do anything else.

This must be what it feels like when a loved one dies and you have no hope.  You don't know where their spirit will go when it leaves the body.  But I'm so glad that as Christians, we do have hope.  We know that our loved ones who die with Christ will be with Him in heaven when they die.  Of course, there is mourning ... because we will miss them here on Earth.  But we have a promise from God that we will see them again.


Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.    -- John 14:1-4




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