As you know from an earlier posting, and from the title of my blog, pigeons are special to me. In my first post about pigeons, I acknowledged that my cats scared the resident pigeons away from our barn when we moved in. I always want them to return, and they have on rare occasions. The most recent visit was during a time of intense thunderstorms.
The day before the first major storm of the week, my son and his friend came running into the house to tell me there was a pigeon on the porch roof. My darling boy knows I love pigeons, so he delighted in telling me, which warmed my heart beyond words.
Of course, I bounded outside with the boys, our dog hot on my heels! As I came out of the laundry room door, there she was, just hanging out. I noticed right away that she had an orange leg band, so my first thought was that she belonged to someone and got lost. We tried coaxing her down with bird seed and bread, but she was not interested.
After a few hours on our roof, the pigeon flew away. I was sad, but also hoping she was returning home.
The next day, the pigeon was on our roof again. I was so worried about her because storms were heading our way. She had plenty of shelter options, including our big horse barn. After the storms, she was fine, but she did not stay long, she flew away again.
That night, the weather service put out a warning for severe thunderstorms due to come the next morning, worse than the ones we just had. I woke up early to get chores done and noticed that the pigeon was back!!! This time I was really worried, because they were calling for severe winds and possible tornados.
I finished chores quickly and ran up to the house, noticing the pigeon had tucked herself into a nook between two peeks of our roof line. It seemed as though she was choosing to weather the storm on our house, and there was a comfort about that.
The weather service wasn’t lying, the storm was terrible. It raged!!! There was never a tornado warning, but trees came down everywhere, along with powerlines and some rooftops. Once it passed, I went out and saw that the pigeon was okay. I noticed her orange leg band again.
The color of the pigeon’s leg band kept coming to my mind. I decided to do some research on the color orange in the Bible. I was led to the following scriptures:
· Ephesians 3:19 (passionate praise)
· Daniel 3:19-29 (deliverance)
· Ezekiel 1:4 (Fire of God)
· Psalm 97:3 (warrior)
What can I learn from these specific passages and their themes? There are so many ways to analyze them as a unit, but the way I relate to them is this way. I have been building my relationship with God through passionate praise for over three years. I began searching for Him with more passion in order to be delivered from some intense emotional battles. Once I began building my relationship with Him through intentional prayer, praise, reading His Word, and listening to trusted voices, I started to feel a fire inside of me. It was a fire that fueled me to seek Him more and more and more. As I continued seeking Him, I felt more capable of dealing with the various trials in my life, and some have very deep roots. Soon, I found myself speaking His truth to others, enduring my trials with a divine strength, and identifying as a warrior of Christ. I was becoming loyal to Him no matter what, no matter how hard it was. No matter how many times I failed. I was and am His soldier, His warrior.
It has been over four days since those storms tore through our area, and it has been four days since I have seen the pigeon. It is interesting how she showed up just before the storms. Maybe she knew our home was a safe place to seek shelter. Maybe she was a sign from God that all will be well. I do know that she symbolizes many things to me, including:
1. Praise our Heavenly Father with passion. Through passionate praise, you will build a mighty fire within you, the Fire of God. It will burn and refine you into a great warrior capable of being delivered through any trial of this earth through God Himself. God knows who His warriors are. He knows they carry His fire. He dances and rejoices in their mighty praises!
2. When we are lost, God is our shelter. We can come to Him as we are, with His son Jesus Christ in our hearts, and fall at His feet.
