What will the day bring?

     I am back from vacation and excited to get back to work.  I have one hundred ideas for church, worship, bible studies, children's programming and that is just what I want to do at work, I have gardens and a sewing room to weed out and a chest I want to paint. Despite my new found energy I was brought up short this morning by a blue jay.
     Typically I do not pay much attention to the bossy blue jay, the one who chases my sweet chickadee away. As I was working in my garden I startled a baby blue jay learning how to fly.  This little bird was on the ground fluttering his wings and hopping from left to right squawking for his mother, when down from the nest she flew.  I was reminded of the book "Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman, though this little guy was not going to have to wander far and wide to find his home.
     Our scripture for this Sunday from 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 speaks of our eagerness to do something being matched by completing it according to ones means.  The mother jay and I both started our day with eagerness to start something.  I stopped my work and sat in the sun watching the dance between mother and baby bird.  The mother herded the baby back toward the nest, which I discovered in a tree by the garden, with gentle calls and constantly showing herself to the baby.  The mother jay never touched the bird or even landed close.  As I watched I couldn't help but find myself feeling like a parent, worrying if the baby would wander too far, frustrated that the baby couldn't get himself in the air just a little bit longer, and finally I found myself amazed at the patience this mother jay was going to need to complete what she had begun.
    Our mornings may have started the same, but my to do's may or may not get done today and with very little consequence but one little bird made it back into a nest and I imagine will learn to fly by tomorrow.
     How patient is our God who watches us with too many or too few somethings to do?  God is ever present, not in our faces, but gently nudging us toward completion.