On Eagle’s Wings

On Eagle’s Wings

Those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

It was past sundown when the pathologist called me at home to tell me the bad news about my patient Patrick. She had reviewed his blood test, and the results weren’t good.

“Your patient has acute leukemia and a very aggressive type of it,” she said.

Earlier that day, I had diagnosed Patrick with anemia and admitted him to the hospital. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that something else was going on with what should have been a straightforward diagnosis. I thanked her for calling, but inside I felt sick. The results were much worse than I had expected.

I didn’t sleep well that night as I thought about giving Patrick the news in the morning. I wrestled with what to say—especially because I didn’t know the state of his spiritual journey.

The next morning, on the twenty-mile drive to the hospital, my heart was still heavy. Just then, as the sun peeked over the horizon, I saw a bald eagle perched on top of a large hickory tree. It was almost directly above a cross that marked the spot where another patient of mine had met the Lord a few years earlier. In my thirty years of traveling that route, I had never seen an eagle in that part of the county. Their habitat was farther north, near the river.

As I got closer, I marveled at the eagle’s grandeur. And as I passed by, I remembered today’s verse, and it gave me the encouragement I needed to tell Patrick that the Lord would lift him up and give him strength during his upcoming journey.

The conversation I had been dreading went much easier than I had anticipated. Patrick told me he had been walking with the Lord for more than thirty-five years—ever since a nearly fatal tractor accident when he was sixteen.

I told him about seeing the eagle, and we talked about all the ways that God had already lifted him up. Then we prayed together. I knew that, regardless of how Patrick’s journey turned out, he would find his strength in the Lord.

TODAY’S RX

If you need new strength to run and not grow weary or to walk and not faint, put your trust in the Lord.

God, thank you for displaying your magnificence and power through your beautiful creation. Let it be a reminder to me always of your great love for me.