Nov 5 Thu
What happened to the eagle that fell in a muddy swamp?
I read it a long time ago. I don’t know where. It’s an old story that comes alive every day. I will tell you only the final part of the anecdote —which is what can truly move you deep inside.
“It’s fallen over there,” a boy of the group said.
Sure enough, the fierce storm that early morning had caused a gigantic golden eagle to fall to the ground, dazed and half-dead. There it lay with its large beak, its long, square-tipped tail, and its wingspan of nearly three meters.
The youngest children kept their distance. One of the boys, approaching carefully, managed to tie a chain to one of the eagle’s legs and secure the other end to an iron hook on the swampy ground. The children stepped back to watch what would happen.
When the eagle awoke from the daze caused by its fall, it spread its enormous wings and tried to take flight; but, held fast as it was by the chain, it fell back into the dust.
The eagle saw some pigeons flying swiftly past her; this gave her new courage. And, with great effort, she began flapping her wings again; but the chain attached to the ground pulled her down once more.
Four, five, six, ten, twenty times she tried to rise up to reach her nest high in the rocky cliffs. But four, five, six, ten, twenty times she fell again under the weight of the chain. Finally, discouraged by so much futile effort, she resigned herself to dying chained to the earth.
But the story continues that on her continuous attempt to reach the clouds, the wear and tear on the chain rubbing against its iron rings finally broke the link holding her leg. The golden eagle was free to fly to its place in the sky!
With just one more attempt to struggle, with just one more attempt to fly, it would have found itself soaring high above the mountains. But there, floundering in the dirty swamp, the eagle remained forever—the one whose flying paths were on the rocky peaks—even though it was free!
How many failures in our plans! How many broken decisions! How many unfinished projects in your life, right?
It doesn’t matter. Start over today. With plenty of encouragement or plenty of discouragement, just the same… start again! And you’ll reach the goal.
Alongside our defeats, God has left us a bucketful of hope.
Trilogy (3), excerpts from J. Urteaga.