The Eagle - Part 1 (True Peace)

Some of you know that I go through stretches of time when I am obsessed with a particular animal or thing of nature.  I believe the giraffe crush of 2008 is well documented in our family blog.

Well, it's happened again!

Early in the Spring we had the the very cool opportunity to see a bald eagle sitting by it's very large nest filled with its baby eaglets during a vacation in the Texas Hill Country.  It is one of those things that sounds so regular and ordinary until you see it in person and then it grabs you and leaves you (or me) totally captivated, doing endless google searches for all kinds of eagle information no regular person needs to know.

This is a very bad picture of what we saw in person.

Lucky for my kids, I am a homeschool Mom and I can justify all the time wasted invested learning about this because you can bet I'll be sharing my new found knowledge with them. 

To-scale representation of a bald eagle and its nest at Bass Pro Shop on a different vacation - totally feeding my eagle obsession :)

Fast forward to early this summer and imagine my surprise when I find out the theme for our church's VBS would be Sonrise National Park and on Day 1 they would be using the eagle to illustrate how God give us TRUE PEACE.

I realize there are many references to eagles (22 if I researched it right) throughout Scripture and not all are used in the context that I am referring to below but this is the one we focused on for this lesson.  I hope to spend some time studying and teaching the others to the kids in the years to come.

Check out the size of that nest.  A real one can weigh up to 700 pounds by the time the eagle retires it.

 
So, here it goes... I could not get enough about this.  The parallels we can draw to the Christian life are so cool.   My good friend Rachel rocked the lesson!
 
Did you know that....

• God made the eagle to sense when a storm is coming long before it breaks?     

Lulu tracing with marker the eagle I drew.  Dimensions of drawing reflect the true size of the bird.

                   

• The eagle will fly to a high spot and wait for the winds to come.

• When the storm hits, it sets its wings (think 7ft. wing span!) so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. 

• While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it, not doing any work to lift those heavy wings on its own but instead riding the wind streams calmly.

• The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It is lifted by the winds that bring the storm. 

"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles." - Isaiah 40:31

Had to bribe him for this picture!

That day, our VBS kiddos learned that like an eagle they can experience God's true peace while riding the storms of life.

This is a hard lesson for most kids to really get.  Hard to imagine storms of life when you haven't experienced them.  Even harder to imagine peace in the middle of one.


I still remember the first time I witnessed that peace.  November 25, 2007.

I guess the reason I am so drawn to these creatures and others is that they point me to Him who made me and they teach me about His character.  I am one of those weirdos who wakes up and immediately goes outside.  The things He made, they draw me in.

"Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:7-10)

more to come about eagles :)))))