Hawks, Healing, and Hope
God’s messenger of hope to me at a time of deep doubt
It began with a hawk here, a hawk there. A red-tailed hawk in a tree, one on a fence, another perched on a post searching for his breakfast. I love animals and nature so it didn’t surprise me that I noticed these beautiful birds as I glanced out the window or drove past them in the course of my daily routines.
I also didn’t think they were a spiritual message to my hurting heart, just simply God’s wonder on display.
Initially, I didn’t connect the legalism I had been bound up in and the doubting of my purpose in God’s plan to the hawk sightings.
I was recovering from an abusive, legalistic church situation, one that had dovetailed on some personal pain and my heart was hurting. I felt picked over, picked at, and raw.
Although not visible to the world, I had wounds everywhere. My heart bled, my emotions were overly sensitive, mentally I was wounded and confused, even my relationship with my husband was bruised and battered from the legalistic expectations we had tried to live under.
Most of all, I felt picked apart in my soul. My identity had been scrutinized and criticized so much I felt like my…
