Good Parents

We discovered this fella resting in our back yard about midday on Saturday. At first I was concerned that he was sick, especially since he wasn't moving from the one spot. West Nile Virus is a concern in our area, with crows being particularly prone to it, so I was worried about that for a short bit. But after a while, we realized that he was a baby. My first tip off was when I looked up and saw a couple of adult crows going from branch to branch overhead. From what we could see, he had probably just left the nest that day. We watched for awhile, and out of extreme curiosity, I went out the front door to the gate to try to get a better view. I don't know whether it was Mama or Papa, but one of them flew to a branch nearer to where I was and I could tell it was keeping an eye on me.

After an hour or so, I got sick of waiting for this youngster to do something, so I ventured out to the yard and walked slowly in his direction, hoping to encourage him to leave. My goodness, what did I do that for! One of the parents came flying towards me, cawing angrily and flapping away. You never saw anyone run back into the house as fast as I did. So, I kept my vigil safely inside the sun room, watching and waiting for something to happen. I took one more trip to the side gate, whereupon a parent came to the same branch as before, staring at me. "I just want you to take your kid out of my yard, please," I said politely and went back in.

I did have to do something else with my day , so I went into the kitchen to accomplish something productive. Then came the ruckus. I'm not sure how it started, but I heard loud cawing and rushed to look out and saw that a poor squirrel was being attacked by one the parents in the vicinity of the baby crow. The squirrel must have made the mistake of going over to inspect, I don't know. I called my daughter to see the excitement, as the poor baby crow started squawking loudly and scurried (or whatever you might call it) over to a corner of the yard. The squirrel seemed confused and went that way too, got attacked again, and eventually hightailed it, or should I say bushy-tailed it, safely up a tree. In all this confusion and excitement, don't you know that the little one at last took flight and ended up on the roof of our sun room? I ran out front door again (I like this sort of thing) and went over to the other corner of the back fence and saw the poor thing crying away on the roof, being coaxed by his parents from high in the trees in a neighbor's yard. Finally, crying all the time, he took off and landed up on an oak tree branch! I applauded, his parents were satisfied, and everyone settled down. He stayed there for a long time resting, and the parents went off for a while, knowing their "child" was safe where he was. Then later I noticed he had gone.

Would it be that we'd all be such good parents, folks. At this stage in their "child's" life, he needed their constant, watchful eye. He needed to be protected, and he needed to be guided. No doubt right now they're teaching him the ways of the world he's going to live in and they're teaching him how to survive. Certainly, they've given us a good lesson in child-rearing, wouldn't you say? We can't leave our young children to themselves, can we? They'd never survive in this wicked world. We have to protect them and guide them: We have to give them God's Word; we have to show them Christ. We have to show them who He is and how to find Him; and then, by the grace of God, pray that the day will come that they'll flee to Him, as that baby crow eventually followed the bidding of his parents.