We Watch ’Em Fly

As a boy, I sat on my granddad’s porch one day and watched a bird pushing her little ones out of the nest. They beat their wings in a struggled frenzy. Then the moment came when they got it. They began to lift and then they were gone.

It occurred to me that the momma bird would be left alone. I asked my granddad what she would do. Looking at me in my endless chatter, he must have considered the relief that bird would know when there weren’t all those little birds crowding the nest anymore. But my granddad said, “Well…she watches ’em fly.”

I’ve thought about that response often with the kids I teach. We practice and work so hard, but then there comes a time when we let go of the reins and they walk onto the field and play. We stand on the sidelines…and watch ’em fly.

Another season just ended. In a few months, my students will walk out onto the field one more time with their robes and tassels and…well…I’ll watch ’em fly. Oh, how they will fly. While I hate more than anything to see them go, I love observing the success that follows. I feel like I’m back on that front porch again, as one by one they take off into the wild blue yonder.

Not long ago, one of the kids from years back came home. He said, “There are more glamorous lives than being in McDonough. This might not have been what you would have chosen, but every time I need somewhere to call home, I know where to find you. Besides, you get to stay here and watch all of us to see how we turn out. You get to help us figure it out when we don’t know where to go next.”

Maybe that’s what life is all about. As a boy on a porch, I was captivated with the wonder of what it would be like to fly. Now every day I learn more about the beauty of watching someone else learn to soar. I believe it’s true even in those last breaths. I wasn’t there when my granddad left this world, but I know he flew.

He didn’t see me graduate from high school or conduct the Carolina Band. He didn’t see me make it through law school. But in my heart I believe that from a front porch somewhere, he watched me fly.

PRAYER: Lord, give me wings to soar on the updraft of Your will for me, and courage when those I care about leave the nest.

“There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air…” Proverbs 30:18-19 KJV.

Today’s devotion is by Matthew McCord. An attorney in McDonough, GA, Matt describes himself simply as a son, a brother, a friend, a musician, a teacher…and a lawyer.  He is equally comfortable in the boardroom, the courtroom, the classroom, by a trout stream, and in church.