Remember the Birdcage

My dad died twenty-seven years ago this week from pancreatic cancer.
The day after he went to be with the Lord, my mom said something to me that I have thought about hundreds of times since.

She told me to picture a birdcage with a little door open on each side. Then she said to imagine a bird flying through one open door, crossing the cage, and almost as quickly as it had entered, flying right back out through the door on the other side.

That, she told me, is this life.

The cage is our time here. Everything outside of it, the endless sky before the bird enters and the endless sky after it leaves, is eternity.
I have never forgotten that picture.

At the time, I was grieving my dad, so I understood why she was telling me. She wanted me to see that what felt like the end to me wasn’t the end at all. Compared to eternity, even an entire lifetime here is only a brief flight between two open doors.

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized we can definitely make this cage feel very big. A four-minute conversation can take four days from us. Someone’s opinion can become more important than our own peace and something that may never happen can steal joy from something that is happening right now.

But then I think about those two open doors.
How much of this brief passage do we really want to spend being offended or how much peace do we want to give away worrying about things we cannot control?
There are things that deserve our attention but there are also things we’ve given years of our lives that probably deserved an afternoon.

When I picture that bird now, I don’t imagine him circling back, trying to find his way into the cage. I imagine him flying free.

So, remember the birdcage. Let the small things stay small and trust God with what you cannot control. The flight is too short to miss what matters because we’re consumed by what doesn’t. This little stretch between two doors is so small compared to the glorious eternity waiting beyond them.