Dear Lizzie Mae,

There is always that sickening, "thump!" I have heard it several times in my lifetime. It comes while you are driving and a small bird does not get out of the way in time. Whenever this happens, my stomach wretches and I feel like I want to gag.

Even when I was a kid with my new BB gun. We all thought it great sport to try to shoot birds with our BB gun. After all, what was a BB gun for? Birds and streetlights. (Maybe I'm telling stories that should better be lift untold.) But even then, whenever I killed a bird, I felt the same innate gag rise in my throat. While my friends rejoiced and say, "Yeah! Way to go!" Inside, I felt my stomach recoil.

Not so much with streetlights. One does not think too much of consequences when one is a small boy.

But whenever I accidently kill a bird, these days (since I read my Bible), along with the gagging, comes the quiet question, "What ever happened to God?"

Where was he when this sparrow fell?

For years, this question haunted me. Maybe God doesn't really care for all of those sparrows after all. Was his eye upon the sparrow when it fell from its nest as a featherless chick and drowned in a rainstorm? Surely you have discovered the lifeless body of a baby bird dead on the ground after a rainstorm. Not a pretty sight.. Where was God's eye when a small, defenseless bird was crushed under the tires of someone's car, or that was killed by a BB gun, supposedly for a child's sport?

The truth of the matter?

I am confident God welcomed that small creature in heaven owing to the fact that he needed one more song there. Note what the scripture actually says, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the Father's will."

Wait a minute.

Does God actually "will" the death of a small bird? Hardly! Maybe? Who knows? But we can be certain that he sometimes allows it. Allowing unpleasant things to happen seems to be part of the "will of God."

Even Jesus acknowledged this when he said to Pilate, "You could have no power against me at all unless it was given to you (allowed) from above."

We look at such things and say, "What a waste." God sees all things as part of his timeless Creation. We see only a part of the painting, He sees the whole thing. And despite its occasional dark hues, when you stand back and see the whole thing, it is a beautiful painting, indeed.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't gag when something ugly happens. Nor does it mean God himself is not moved with sad emotion when bad things happen. After all, the scripture plainly tells us that "he can be touched with the feeling" of our infirmities. That, my friends, is emotional language. Never marginalize or dismiss your emotions as irrelevant.

So the next time you hear that "thump," or the next time your eyes start to well with tears, understand that God is aware. He doesn't miss much (even the hairs on your head). He is there. He knows what to do. The good of something bad is never lost on him. That is why for the sparrow, and for the child of God, all things, all things, work together for good. . .

-- PDM

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