Nesting

Living in the middle of the city does not lend to many opportunities to see wildlife, so I've been pretty excited about what I've been observing lately right outside my door. A mama robin recently decided to build a nest in the gap between the drain pipe and outside wall of my apartment. For the first few days, there was just a mess on the ground below of what materials didn't stick together. But now, every time I leave or come home, I look up to see her sitting on her eggs, waiting for them to hatch.

Here's that ongoing theme of patience coming back to me again. I've been engaged for just under a month now and in that span of time, the fiance and I have managed to get a lot planned, despite my constant telling people that I wasn't going to do anything until after my school year was over. Things just kept coming up that we "had" to take care of right away. At this point I feel like he and I are pretty settled into this engaged couple routine, and everything we do together is building toward this greater purpose of marriage that isn't going to be official for another 6 months. And it is already really hard to wait. Now that we have this end goal (which is actually a new beginning) in sight, it's hard to not rush things along, hence all the planning we've already done.

But we're never going to have this time of engagement again. It's time for us to continue to get to know each other better and prepare ourselves spiritually and mentally for what will be an incredibly joyous and trying season as newlyweds.

1Corinthians 13:4-5 "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful..."

As I look up at that little bird, I think of how boring it would be to just sit there, day after day, waiting until the eggs start to hatch. But if she wasn't there, those eggs wouldn't be able to hatch in the first place, they need her warmth to develop the life within. What a symbol of sacrificial love.