Storks and Swimming Pools
- sandcastlejewelry
- Jul 24
- 3 min read
The last few years have come with a heaviness I was not prepared for. While I will reserve the details on all of that, it has brought a lesson I hope to share from a decade of repairing a foreclosed house and giant birds I’ve come to keep a keen eye out for. Because what is your midlife if not a constant home renovation and bird watching?
Birds first. I've always loved the idea that a stork could bring a baby. Before you get too excited, this is not a baby post. In fact, I have vocalized more than once, “If I am to have another child, it will have to be delivered by a stork to my doorstep and I'll probably try to find another home for it first.” Hold that thought.
Renovation second. We bought our house nearly a decade ago. I remember the first days of living here. The house wasn't really livable. The pool looked like a pond. The deconstructed basement was full of mildew. The property was so overgrown I spent years playing “weed or flower?” Somewhere in that season, I got accustomed to making checklists and checking them off. Anxiously awaiting the day everything would feel finished and complete. Spoiler alert. That still hasn't happened.
And I tend to be the kind of person that can always see what hasn't been done, or what something could be. At best, this fuels creativity and projects but it also has a darker unhealthy side. In fact, I think it brings on a mild depression and a realization that there's a lot in life I will likely not accomplish. At 41 years old, I find myself thinking about those things. A thought process that may increase as my years keep ticking upward.
So, waiting on a day where all is finished, arrived and perfect–I think it might be as mythical as a stork delivering a baby.
Scripture talks about this waiting and working. Working out our Salvation. About the now and not yet of Heaven Come down. That Christ has redeemed the earth and yet we live in the broken. A brokenness we often battle. We chase a myth that everything can be complete and whole. And sometimes in that, at least for me, I find myself just focused on the brokenness and the shortcomings.
As I’ve wrestled with this concept of trying to work towards healing and bringing light to others in the brokenness, the paradox is, the brokenness will be here no matter how much I strive to solve it or ignore it. But it is not without hope. In the last two years. I've been noticing storks. A lot. Truly, hundreds if not thousands of storks in all seasons in all locations and so many varieties.
When I see them, I think to myself. What are they delivering? Which I know is kind of silly. But, as I've watched them I've also begun to think about my own delivery. That perhaps, this Christian walk and salvation is not a one-time magical arrival on your doorstep, like a stork baby. But rather, more reminiscent of the storks I’ve been watching. Slowly beating huge wings carrying its heavy body in a rhythmic, determined, predestined sort of way. And when I see a stork fly by, body sharp and pointed like an arrow, I think to myself, “God is still delivering me. God is still delivering all of us.”
So today, as I float
in a pool once full of 20 turtles, I notice today, there are (hopefully) none. I start looking around at the to-do list. Trying to pay more attention to the things that have been done. Because yes, much like this property, there's a lot to still be delivered. But there's so much. That already has been done.
That's the sentiment behind the stork bracelet. Wear it for yourself as a reminder that God isn't done with you. Wear it is a reminder that God isn't done with the loved one you pray for on repeat. Wear it as a reminder that the destination, and the deliverance, might be slow. But it is never without purpose or direction. Remember your life contains the same steady rhythmic movement of a stork in flight, that only God can ordain.
I hope you can reflect on that today and see the places God has moved you slowly towards a future only He could orchestrate. If you can’t see that today, hold fast, the view is coming.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you a hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11
“Beauty for ashes, a garment of praise for my heaviness”
“Be still and know that I am God.”
xo,
Jilli
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