Day 10 - Hope is the thing with feathers

You know that spring is almost here when you wake up in the morning to the sound of a bird singing outside your window.  I don't know about you, but during the winter days when I wake up in the morning all I want to do is hit the snooze button and stay in my warm, cozy bed of security and bliss not ready yet to face another day of duties and responsibilities.  Yet with spring just around the corner and the sound of my little songbird outside my window in the morning gives me a boost to embrace the day with equal amounts of courage and peace to face whatever the day has planned for me.  

Birds are an incredible part of my spirituality.  I know there is the religious symbol of the Holy Spirit as a dove, and for me the symbol of a bird as the Holy Spirit doesn't hit too far from my heart.  I have yet to speak of my story of how I began to believe in God.  I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools my entire life.  Honestly, right now I currently attend a Catholic college.  As a child I went to church mostly because I was required to at school and occasionally if my parents or other family members (my grandma) brought me along with them. 

It wasn't until high school that I began my relationship with God.  I went on a retreat called Kairos, and I can honestly say that this retreat changed my life forever.  This was the first time that I discovered who I am on the inside.  On this retreat, I dealt with a painful past that for most of my life I didn't realize had an effect on me.  It wasn't something that I thought about day in and day out.  But as I started the journey into my heart, I began seeing all the darkness and pain that I never even knew existed.  On this retreat, we had a time called "shared prayer,"  which is the moment where each person in the group takes a turn praying out loud to God.  I took my first leap of faith and poured it all out to God in front of girls that I was only acquainted with in high school.  I sobbed and wailed in horrible pain to God for the first time in my life. I cried and cried for every year of my life that I kept all these feelings locked inside my heart.  As the sobs finally subsided and every piece of my heart was on the floor in front of me, I heard the faintest sound of a songbird outside singing peace into my heart and I knew that everything was going to be okay.  That marked the first time in my life that God made his presence known to me in my life, with a songbird. 

Recently hearing a songbird outside my window reminded me that God is with me and everything is going to be okay.  And it gives me the courage to face the day, whatever awaits me, may it be a painful day full of hardships and tribulations, I know that God will be there.   

Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

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 chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

If I had to choose a favorite poem this would be it.  The thing with feathers sings a tune inside my soul and no words are necessary to understand the peace it brings.  I have heard this thing with feathers sing to me in the chillest land, on the strangest sea, and through the hardest times in my life.  This thing with feathers has given me so much warmth and is always there every morning singing to my soul, and never once asked a single thing in return from me.