Out of the hurricane, out of that wild smother of wind and rain, the white bird came — battered, bruised, and hardly alive.
Far, far from home, she lay on the soccer field of a Massachusetts school. A thousand miles of storm-tossed water lay between her and her nesting ground. Helplessly lying there, her life was fast flickering out. Then ten-year-old Ilse and her mother came to the rescue. Gently lifting the strange bird into a box, they carried her home to safety and began to nurse her back to health.
Ornithologists identified her as a white-tailed tropicbird, sometimes called a “long-tail” because of the bird’s two long tail feathers. It is the “national bird” of Bermuda.
A research station that raises live fish for laboratories donated her food: live herring, smelts, and saltwater minnows. Soon she was gaining weight and fluttering her wings again.
And now, what was to be done with her? She could not survive in that cold climate, but Bermuda was too far away, weather conditions too uncertain, for the young bird to fly home. But fly she did — all the way home from Boston to Bermuda — on a big Delta Airlines plane. Ilse’s mother bought a ticket for herself and the bird, and she flew with her to Bermuda to give her freedom again.
It seems a great expenditure of time and money to save the life of just one bird, but bird lovers will understand. And it is a little picture of what has been done for human beings — for us. We have been battered and bruised by the storms of life; we have gotten far from God and home; we may be nearer death than we realize. Yet there is hope. As Ilse and her mother lifted up the big tropicbird and took her to safety, so the Lord Jesus came in love to save us.
The helpless tropicbird was rescued altogether by the kindness of others; even so we are saved “by grace . . . through faith; and that not of [ourselves]: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:88For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)). He does it all. All we can do is believe, and receive, and thank and praise God.