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Grief is like a vacuum cleaner; it sucks the life right out of you!

That’s exactly how widowhood made me feel; empty and lifeless. I had no strength of my own. Like the psalmist in Psalm 121, I knew where my help came from. Every morning as I put my feet on the floor, my prayer was, “Lord, be my strength.” Reading through my journal recently I found this entry–“It is by His strength alone I will get through this because if not I would just curl up and die.”

A favorite verse of mine is Isaiah 40:31. (NIV)

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

I have to admit, eagles have a special place in my heart. When eagles started returning to our area, my husband could spot them a mile away. He was always coming home and telling me of his latest eagle sighting. When he passed, I began spotting eagles in a few places on my back roads drive to work. Each time it seemed they appeared when I needed a bit of heaven. The eagle became my cardinal!

As I was preparing this message for our AWM Hope Conference this spring, I dug into this verse, seeking the meaning and significance of the promise that we will soar on wings like eagles.

We can learn a lot from the eagle!

To understand God’s comparison of our faith walk to the flight of an eagle, we first need to understand some characteristics of this feathered creature.

• Eagles are born with large, heavy wings. They do not flap their wings to stay in the air; eagles stretch out their wings and hold them still to soar.
• An eagle waits for large atmospheric gusts of winds called wind thermals to become airborne. Sometimes, an eagle will perch and wait for days to catch a wind thermal that can carry it.
• Storms provide excellent wind thermals; hence an eagle will deliberately seek a storm rather than avoid it. It knows that by enduring the temporary atmospheric adversity, it will be projected to clear, peaceful skies above.
• If an eagle flaps its wings unnecessarily during flight, the excessive use of energy can cause them to die.
• https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/what-does-it-mean-to-soar-on-wings-like-eagles.html

In order to soar, the eagle simply stretches out its heavy wings, trusting the wind current to lift it above the storm. There is such effortlessness to it. The Lord promises it can be for us as well. That’s what this whole verse is about. I know it doesn’t seem like it at times; maybe never, but we CAN soar like an eagle!

Quit Flapping Your Wings!

The first part of the verse – those who hope in the Lord – explains how we can achieve this. Some versions may say wait or trust in the Lord. The Hebrew word is qavah and it means to bind together by twisting, to be gathered together, to wait patiently.

In essence, what this verse is saying to us is those who bind themselves to Him will have their strength renewed. Just like the eagle waiting for a good wind thermal, we, too, must wait patiently on the Lord, trusting Him to provide the strength we need to face each day. Sometimes that means we quit flapping our wings and just sit quietly in His presence. In due time, we will catch the wind and soar above the storm to bluer skies.

Just like the eagle doesn’t avoid the storm, we too must not avoid this storm called widowhood. GriefShare taught me that grief is not something you get over, it’s something you go through. My mom used to say, “If God brought you to it then He will bring you through it.”

I don’t just have my mom’s word on it; I have God’s word on it too!

Lord, we have all endured a lot of storms in our lives but widowhood is like an earthquake, tornado, and hurricane all at the same time. We need Your strength to rise above this storm and soar like eagles. May our prayer always be “Lord, be my strength.”