Rebecca has a great love and heart for birds. She can’t really stand seeing an injured bird, or a bird that has met it’s match by slamming into a window. I’ve never really paid much attention to birds before knowing her. She knows an amazing amount of bird names. She told me that it probably came from her father who also really likes birds and taught her about different birds when she was younger.

We have a feeder in our backyard that has a camera (where the video above is from). I can fill this thing, and come back an hour or two later and it is just completely empty. Sometimes I look out there and I’m like “I just filled that thing, stop throwing it all out”. It seems like such a waste as you’ll sometimes see that seeds are just flying out of the feeder left and right as a bird or multiple birds are up on it. It’s funny to watch the birds throwing seeds out of the feeder as they search for that one particular seed. From the outside it looks so chaotic and wasteful. This disease has felt that way – scattering future plans, ordinary routines, certainty, comfort, control. But it really gets to the heart of things, gets to the thing that’s of greatest value: love. Rebecca and I have been together now for about 23 years, and in that time we have had many a time where we’ve gotten distracted by the seeds that had no value, selfishness, pride, jealously, bitterness, being right, expectations, etc. This disease has boiled away impurities, the seeds that used to seem important are tossed to the floor. It feels like figuring out the secret to a tough game, but only at the end. I feel like we’ve reached a new level of love, the way that we see, talk, treat each other – so different. I imagine that it’s an glimpse or semi-understanding into what the absolute love that God has for us.

Maybe we are the odd ones, and maybe everyone else has already achieved this level in their relationships, but if you haven’t I urge you to strive for it, throw those pointless, poisoned, time-wasting seeds out of your relationships and enjoy real time with those you love, striving for spending energy on things that matter and are positive, and quickly dismissing and chopping out those that are not. (there are 8 commas in that thing that I just passed off as a sentence. Sorry to you grammar people, that must have been painful). You probably think your spouse, or kids, or parents are good/great/amazing/excellent. When’s the last time your actually told them that? Do more of that while you can because those are some awful tasty seeds, and they won’t be there forever.

Reading back though I feel like this turned into more of a soap-box thing than an update. But I do mean it, and anyway it’s my website, so I get to do what I want. 😊

Love you all.