I have had the blessing this Fall to watch baby cardinals grow. I had no idea until I witnessed it myself that these beloved birds are not red when they are young! No beautiful red coat, no red beak, no red tail feathers. GRAY!!! Just gray!! Nothing really that would ever turn my head when I've been bird watching. My heart knew they were cardinals though, by their shape, and of course by their call. As weeks passed, I noticed this scene...a little red here, a little there, each feather filling with the crimson red that warms my heart every time I see one. As I watched, I kept looking for what God wanted me to learn from this gradual transformation that I was witnessing. The gray that I saw represents the "me" in me. Those places at times of my flesh that I would like to forget or those tendencies that seem to surface when I least expect it. As I talked it through with a friend, I realized that each day that I walk with Jesus, become more like Him, allowing myself to be transformed by Him, I am, like the young cardinal, getting another red feather and another, and another. Ultimately, to be complete in Him and completely transformed into His likeness when I meet Him in Glory!"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1John 3:2)
