By Ptr. Rhoda Klein Miller
Shuddering vibrations and loud booms lure me from my office to witness the final walls of the old building across the street as an excavator pulls it down. Amid the dust clouds and thundering noise a gull remains, perched on the edge of ruin. Seemingly unstartled by the drama mere meters from it. What to me feels like an ending, to the gull is only another day.
I think of how often I tremble when change thunders through my life. Noise, disruption, the tearing down of what felt secure—my instinct is to retreat. Is this gull teaching me something about trust?
Scripture reminds me: “We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28). When the scaffolding of my life seems to fall away, perhaps I too can learn to remain—relying not on temporary structures for security, but on Jesus Christ, my sure foundation.
Bird brain research suggests the gulls are not defiant or sentimental. They are not clinging to the building but to their vantage point. And when the building is gone, they will lift into the air, confident the sky is still theirs. I want that kind of resilient faith. If my job, my home, my finances, my relationships crumble, let it not dismantle my sense of worth, hope and belonging to God. What is torn down does not threaten His promises.
This gull reminds me: I need not fear the clamour of destruction, for resurrection is always on the other side of rubble.