Little bird, little bird

There seems to be an endless parade of holidays and special occasions that I tell myself, 'if I can just get through this day, everything will be okay,' but then Christmas or Mother's Day or a birthday rolls around again and the cycle of grief seems to start all over again.  Is this how Frodo felt, slogging through the Dead Marshes or scrabbling over the rocky wastes of Mordor?  Is this what Job went through, after losing everything and his friends show up to accuse him of some secret evil?  Is this how my grandfather felt after his wife of 65 years died?  Is this how the migrating birds feel, following winter's retreat north through wind and cold and snow and rain, when it seems like spring will never come?

Someone gave me a bird feeder a couple years ago and some really nice bird feed to go with it, but I've been slow to put it out and bad about keeping it filled because we don't live in a place where there are resident birds save in the spring, the winters are too cold and summers too dry.  I've had it out for about a year and have had exactly two birds (a house finch and a hairy woodpecker) anywhere near the thing, though the deer did find it this winter and made short work of what little there was inside.  But occasionally I'd fill it again and hope and watch and wait.  Nothing.  Then the other day I saw an odd bird in a tree near the feeder and finally got to check a pine siskin off my life list.  The day after I had a whole flock and they've emptied the feeder and they seem to have invited their friends, I have five species of sparrows, a couple warblers, and a pair of towhees hanging about, resting and refueling before their final push north.  My usually dead and dull yard is alive with singing and flitting wings, what appeared lifeless and lackluster is proving to be a refuge, a sanctuary, somewhere safe and comforting along an arduous and difficult journey.

Frodo found that in Rivendell and later Lorien.  And we each must find it in our own turn upon this arduous trek called life.  When sorrow or fear beset us, where can we turn to find rest and refreshment?  Where do we look for hope when the night of despair draws about us?  Even Jesus sought such comfort the night before His crucifixion, weeping tears of blood, praying in a night dark garden, but there was no delivery, there was no escape, only strength for the journey.  And it is that final, awful journey that has bought us each hope.  So when you walk through an interminable night, there may be something greater at journey's end than you can begin to comprehend.  Frodo's journey meant life for the world though it seemed only to lead to personal doom.  Where do you turn for hope?  What might lie at the end of your own disquiet night?