“...Encourage one another and build up one another, just as you are doing.” ~ I Thess. 5:11

For several years now my wife and I have enjoyed the beautiful music of mockingbirds as we sit on our back deck and enjoy the cool of the evening. About 30 feet from the deck is an electric pole and many of these evenings a mockingbird perches at the top and sings for us. One day as I was walking across the yard a bird lay dead at the base of the pole. For a few evenings there was no music. Then one evening there was another to sing for us. This bird sang for several evenings, then one day I found it dead at the base of the pole. I concluded they were being electrocuted  at the top of the pole. One morning on my way to the office I shared this, over coffee, with my friend who was on the board of New Mac Electric. He talked with one of the linemen who came and checked out the problem and fixed it. No more dead birds.

A few weeks ago my wife noticed a mockingbird with an insect in its beak. It went into the branches of a small tree by our front porch. She asked me to check and sure enough there were two baby birds in a nest. She became concerned for the birds since we knew there was a raccoon prowling the yard at night. She asked me to let our two German Shepherds out of their kennels at night hoping to keep the raccoon scared away. I also put up a cattle panel to block off the tree to keep the dogs from it. We put our two cats in cages.

One day I peeked in to check the babies. They were gone.  The mama bird lying dead on the ground. We were finally able to save the birds when they lit on the pole, but with all the special care we gave to it, we were not able to save the mama bird and her babies in the tree.

Reaching out to help others can sometimes be as disappointing as losing the battle to save a mockingbird, or as rewarding when you do save one.

When reaching out to someone in need, whether it be a material need, emotional need (comfort, encouragement) or spiritual need, there will be more rewarding times than disappointing ones.

I wish to share here, a poem I shared in a blog in February 2013: