There is something so freeing about the image of a bird. I used to look up at birds in the sky and wish I could fly. Through my study of the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I’ve found spiritual freedom in understanding that divine Love, God, is my “mother bird,” so to speak, and that divine Love uplifts me on its own wings.
In the background of all spiritual activity, we find God’s mothering love brooding over Her precious creation. The image of a mother bird can be found throughout the Bible. For example, Moses describes it in Deuteronomy: “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him [Jacob], and there was no strange god with him” (32:11, 12). How uplifting to know that this is how God loves us—from eternity, and with the comforting closeness of a mother bird. This means that everyone is known to our Mother, God.
Mrs. Eddy, a devoted student of the Bible, felt very close to this Mother-love of God. She wrote a poem titled “The Mother’s Evening Prayer,” which includes this passage: “Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight! / Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight” (Poems, p. 4). Mrs. Eddy understood the tender love of the Almighty. Reflecting this Love in how she thought and lived allowed her to heal effectively and to explain to others in her writings how to do so.
