Wings at the Water
There are small, passing comments that our children sometimes make that alter how we see something. Conversations they may never remember having with us have a lasting impact in our own lives. And they may never know it.
Such was the case on Good Friday. My youngest and I had stopped at the restroom on our way to the service. It was while we were washing our hands that she said it.
“I always love the handles,” she said while turning on the faucet to wash her hands.
“What do you love about them?” I asked.
“They look like the wings of…” she paused her already slow, thoughtful speech as she searched for the words. Then she spoke as she turned to grab a paper towel. The bathroom door opened as two women entered while we were standing there.
I missed it. Whatever she said, I had missed. Somehow I needed to know. There was something about the moment. Something about what she was going to say. There was revelation in it. I just knew it. In other moments, I might have brushed it off and kept going. But whatever she was about to say mattered.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I missed what you said and I really want to know. What do the faucet handles remind you of?”
“Like the wings of, of…those birds in Noah’s ark.”
“Doves?” I asked.
“Yes! Doves.”
I looked back at the faucet handles as we simultaneously turned to leave the bathroom. Dove’s wings. Oh, yes. I could see it. She was exactly right. The gentle swoop of the paired hot and cold handles mimicked graceful, gentle wings.
There wasn’t time to decipher the imagery, but it has stayed with me. It is only now that I am finally stopping to consider the depth of it. Wings. Doves. Water. Good Friday. Easter. Noah and Noah’s ark. There are a plethora of meanings that can be drawn from the imagery.
Still, I find myself drawn less to defining it for you, reader, and more to sitting with it privately. More to pulling it together with other unshared moments from that evening.
Wings and water. A dove sent out over the unknown, returning with evidence that what felt endless would not last forever.
And on a day marked by sorrow, sacrifice, and waiting, it is not insignificant.
Of all the things I have learned in my personal journey with the Lord, the one I want to share with you today is this: you can find Him in the little, seemingly insignificant places. You can hear Him in the most ordinary conversations. You can encounter Him when you least expect it.
When life is heavy…when the world is exhausting…when peace is what we crave…He has wings at the water’s edge, drawing us near.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
— Philippians 4:7
