The Conqueror

(Based on Isaiah 40:31 & Romans 8:37)

Stumbling along on a pathway one day,
Depressed and so heartsick, the man tried to pray:
"Oh, what have I done to deserve all this pain?
Why is the life I live now so in vain?"
For gone was the happiness once he had known;
Replaced was such heaviness--He uttered a groan.
"Where are You, my God? Oh, where have you gone?
My loved ones have left me. How can I go on?"

To his ears, at that moment, came a loud piercing cry--
The scream of an eagle, above, in the sky.
Like lightning he streaked to the earth in a dive,
Then soared up again, his capture--alive.
The man watched in awe, this wonderful sight:
He longed to be with him--that eagle in flight.
"I could leave all my worry. I'd soar through the air,
And live like the eagles, with none of earth's care."

As he stood there and studied this powerful bird.
He turned his head sideways when a rustle he heard.
There, disheveled and dazed, on the crest of a hill,
Sat an eagle, just watching. Waiting. Still.
Too feeble to fly, the bird looked around--
So far from the sky, so close to the ground.
In a flash came the message: yes, he was like that!
Too weak to mount up, so dejected he SAT.

Sometime later he noticed a rather strange thing:
That eagle stood up, and he stretched out each wing.
Very soon--with great power--he took off in flight,
Gliding higher, and higher, 'til he soared out of sight.
A great lesson he learned from that bird on the hill:
"Be silent!  Be watchful!  Be waiting!  Be still!
For God the Creator gives power to the weak.
And strength to the weary, if he will but seek."

- Helen Dowd -

[ by Helen Dowd Copyright © 2002, (helendowd@shaw.ca) -- {used with permission} ]