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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: FEATHER (08/20/20)
Challenge: Feather

FOR THE BIRDS

A dramatic encounter with Christ at age 37 brought me into a relationship with the living God through Jesus His Son. The Holy Spirit changed me from the inside out. I suddenly loved reading the Bible. Joining a Bible study with neighborhood women was next so I could learn more about the One I loved.

I became especially close friends with a Hispanic woman, the mother of my seven-year-old son’s classmate. She and I laughed, talked, and prayed together.

One morning over the phone, she said, “If you think I need you for a friend, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“What’s happened?” I asked, baffled by her anger. “Tell me, please, I enjoy our friendship.”

She hung up, wanting no further contact. I was devastated; I thought Christians loved each other. When I’m feeling strong emotions, poems flow out of me. I wrote:


IRREPRESSIBLE*

There lives a little bird inside of me
With bright observant eyes and softly feathered wings,
And when life wears a dark disguise
He hangs on tightly to his perch
And stubbornly, he sings.
Some have no little bird inside
To sing them hopeful chords
And so, they try to silence mine
By stoning him to death with words.

But just as he would yield and fly away
My heart instead takes wing;
I meet a friend, oh glad new day,
And find another bird with which to sing!

A few weeks later, I got a letter from the woman apologizing for the way she had treated me, but no explanation of what had caused her anger toward me. I wrote back, accepting her apology, still open to being friends. I asked God to bless my friend and heal her pain. I never heard back from her. Then they moved away.

Maybe Jesus was toughening me up, strengthen my faith for all the other painful changes coming my way in the following six months: My husband’s heart attack, his worsening food addiction, his filing for divorce, the loss of my home. I was a single parent but not flying solo. Or maybe this was a preview of Harpo, the feathered friend I would meet two years later.

God had me back in college by that October after 17 years. He provided the funding, career goal, and jobs just as they were needed. I KNEW everything would be o.k., that God was leading me. I have a designer and a purpose.

My cockatiel, Harpo, named after Harpo Mark’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, sat on my shoulder and talked to me while I was studying. With bright green wings and orange cheeks, he tipped his head and reproduced my voice inflections perfectly, making me laugh. He liked to cuddle up, his soft, warm feathers touching my face, comforting. When I scratched the feathers above his beak, he closed his eyes and leaned into my hand as if, saying, “Ahh, bird heaven.” Harpo’s creative design was evident.

David Rives, host of “The Heavens Declare,” filmed a program on fossil discoveries that support creation. That program, in particular, caught my attention. Evolutionists date the earth as billions of years old. They hypothesize that birds gradually evolved from reptiles, that their scales, over time, became feathers.

Mr. Rives’ broadcast showed pictures of a bird fossil etched in rock from some catastrophic event. Feathers, not scales, are in the stone. Secular scientists have ignored these feathers. Evolution proponents ignore many other pieces of evidence supporting divine design.

These men of science “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God’s attributes is manifest among them, for God has shown it to them (in creation). Romans 1:18b,19

Word Count: 613
Non-Fiction
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Member Comments
Member
Date
C D Swanson 
08/27/20
You've been through quite a bit, and my heart ached at your pain in your journey.

You certainly were on topic and brought it forward in a big profound way.

Thank you for sharing,

BLessings~
Barbara Culler 
08/27/20
You covered a lot of stuff in this piece. It works better for the challenge to stick to one main theme. Also, you don't need to include the topic/name and word counts.

I'm not sure where the poem fits in. That would have been good for a stand alone piece.

You have some great thoughts and potentials for stories throughout your piece. Find just one that focuses on the topic word/phrase. You can do this! Keep on writing.