Baby birdie

This spring has been so exciting for my little growing birdwatchers.  They have sucessfully located every nest in the neighborhood, identified it by it's shape, color of eggs, and of course the pround parents.  It's been a learning experience for all of us as they explore.  The first nest they found was on the corner fence post of our four foot fence, needless to say it received so much unwelcomed attention that the parents soon abandoned their eggs.  I was hoping after talking about the eggs that would never hatch that the children would leave all future nests alone...ha!
So three abandoned nests later the kids are still on the hunt to destroy yet more bird families.
This morning they found a robin's egg hatching on the sidewalk.  The puny, bug-eyed, sickly looking hatchling was flopping around blindly half in and half out of a little blue shell.  We sat and watched in wonder as it fought desperately to escape the grip of the only home it knew.  Ethan quickly spotted the nearby nest in a small sapling on the tree lawn.  After grabbing a pair of gloves and a step ladder we gently removed the bird from the sidewalk that was heating up quickly in the blazing sun.  Ethan carried it tenderly up the ladder and unceremoniously dumped it into the nest. 
As we backed away and watched intently we saw the mother robin.  She flew to the nest and away again several times and eventually settled in with her new dependent chick.  We walk past he nest daily so I am sure will we soon hear the chirps of a hungry growing birdy.
My little chicks would be helpless without me, while this little bird will probably be flying by summer's end.  I know God purposely designed humans to be with their parents longer than almost any other creature created.  Sometimes I wonder why. There are days when helping them leave the nest and spread their wings would please my selfish nature.  For some reason it takes much longer for us to learn how to walk in this world...we struggle against our true home, the kingdom of God.  We balk at being aliens and try desperately to fit in and "go with the flow."
For me homeschooling was that sort of a decision.  I knew it would set our family apart.  I knew we would take some ridicule.  When that happens in life we have a decision to make, we can hang our heads in shame, or we can count it all part of sharing in the suffering of Christ.  For even though we are in this world we are not of this world and in that thinking I walk in truth and the knowledge that my chicks are in this nest 24/7/365 for a reason.  A reason that will not make sense to the world at large...my children will not be left on the scalding sidewalk of the world's education system, they will be trained as kingdom warriors, as a people set apart. For His mercies are new every morning and I need to tap into those daily in order to be the early bird that gets the worm...afterall I have a nest full!