One night last week I couldn’t sleep. So I got up way too early and went to my desk in my home office. I thought I may as well get some work done. To be honest, I was not happy as I sat in the dark with only the light from my computer, feeling chilly, and thinking this winter of short cold days is getting old. I was definitely thinking crabby thoughts. It was too early to get up but my mind was crowded with concerns about people I love, unresolved issues to be faced, the all too quickly passing of time, the lack of peace in the world…

The monkey chatter in my mind was interrupted by a sound that I didn’t expect in the cold dark winter morning. Through the window I faintly heard a bird chirp and I smiled. Daylight is on its way, the earth is moving toward light and warmth, my life is not a problem to be solved but a holy mystery to move through with trust and hope. A bird chirping in February was a graced call to remember this.

Sometimes one small thing can change everything.

Recently a book was published called Born Survivors. It is an inspiring story about three women, torn from their husbands, all sent to concentration camps. They were able to hide their pregnancies, which revealed would have meant immediate death to them and their unborn children. Despite unthinkable conditions and malnourishment, in the last days of Nazi Germany, they gave birth and the three babies, now in their 80’s, survive to this day.

There was so much about their stories that were heartbreakingly sad and unbelievably heroic, as well as a testimony to the human spirit and sacrificial love. But one scene especially stayed with me. One of the women said she saw her husband only once after they were taken prisoners. For a brief moment, from across the camp, they were close enough that she could hear him say to her, “Stay strong and only think good thoughts.”

That is remarkable. Experiencing the depth of cruelty humanity is capable of, he gave his wife and unborn child this gift of the call to goodness, in a loving thought that still inspires 80 years later.

Isn’t this how our God comes to us? In the bleakest times. In the cold lonely moments. In the one bird’s reminder of the turning of warmth and light. In a few words from someone who loves you to rise above malevolence.

May a bird chirp for you when the winter seems too long. May someone give you words of goodness to hold fast to in the world’s darkness. May these small and great miracles remind us of a God who loves us in the mundane state of tired crabbiness and will find a way to give us a lifeline of hope and find a shred of goodness for each other when we are most lost.