Up the Sunbeam

-- For two weeks I had been trying to no avail to block out the raucous and incessant screech emanating from the mulberry tree outside my dining room where I do all my writing. Imagine the sound of a rusty door hinge stuck on infinite repeat!  The noise was so unpleasant and distracting, I had to all but abandon my usual love of an open sliding glass door, just to put something of a buffer between my ears and that horrid squawking sound! One morning, when I did have the door open to let the cool breeze in, I noticed that the squawking was moving around instead of staying in the mulberry tree.  She So Sweet and I went to investigate.  Finally we saw the noisy little culprit who had been disturbing our peace!!  It was a baby mockingbird who had yet to discover he could make more than one sound! We tiptoed out toward the baby bird and much to our surprise he didn't make any effort whatsoever to get away. Perched in a flowering shrub underneath the nest in the mulbe...

-- When do you suppose it happens?  Where along the way do we begin to become things we're not?  And at what point do we stop becoming the things we are . . . or get sidetracked, anyway? Why are we tempted to squeeze ourselves into molds other than what God designed us to be?  How is it that sometimes we're not even sure we KNOW what He wants us to be?  "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Are you any of the things you thought you'd be?  Sometimes, even when we are grown up, we're not sure if we know the answer to that question, and being what we'll be feels as far distant as it did when we were children, . . . maybe farther. It can't possibly be for lack of options.  In our time, the options are practically limitless!  Maybe there are too many options, and we just can't zero in on what our "thing" is. Maybe we have a vague idea or bits and pieces that seem unrelated, but we can't quite nail it down to an elevator speech t...