God's gift

A bright yellow bird greeted me by the purple flowers this morning. It flew into the snowball tree where another bird, duller in colour, sang beautifully. The yellow bird flew away, outclassed, ashamed that its preening had not improved its singing.

The woman goes on a diet, gets a boob job, does everything she can to be that yellow bird. Then someone comes along whose beauty shines from inside. What do you see, the pretty plumage or the beautiful song? The insecurity or the self-assurance?

What do I see? I would hope that I saw it all, and I imagine that I miss a lot: if that bird had not sung when it did, I would have remained mesmerized by the yellow one.

And if I continued to look, even deeper, maybe I would see that each was exactly the same gift, wrapped differently. God’s gift presents itself to me every time I open my eyes, but I am so used to receiving it that I have come to take it for granted.

Discriminating between Gods gifts – beautiful songs versus pretty plumage – is completely missing the innocence that underlies it all.