WAPANGRENBA IMCHEN
JUNE 8, 2025
I had been away for a few days. Returned late last night, and woke up early today with a strange mixture of weariness and curiosity - curious to see what had become of the birdies nesting outside my window. I always looked forward to them - a small, tender reminder that life goes on.
But as I sat in my usual corner and looked out the window, something felt off. The tree - the one that had sheltered those fragile lives - was gone. I blinked. Looked again. Gone. I stepped outside and confirmed it: the owner had cleared the surrounding area and cut the tree down. Just like that. Without warning. Without a chance.
The baby birds were still too young to fly - too new to survive the world on their own. I know they’re gone. And I grieve for them. Their tiny chirps, their barely formed wings - now silenced by a decision that felt so harsh and so sudden. How can something so tender be so easily discarded?
And it struck me - how often life feels this way. We live in a world that is often unfair, unforgiving, and relentless. A world where innocent things are lost without explanation. I see the sorrow in my students’ eyes as they lost their loved and dear one in this human-made cruel war. I see the grief in friends who mourn, and I say it plainly: I care.
I care deeply.
About loss.
About injustice.
About the pain that never makes headlines.
Because the truth is:
Grief is real.
Frustration is real.
Burnout is real.
Depression is real.
Criticism cuts deep.
Even when your heart is in the right place, life doesn’t always go easy on you. One moment you are walking forward, the next you're flat on the ground, breath knocked out of your chest.
This morning, the death of a little bird family broke something open in me. It brought me low and made me sit with the weight of it all. But in that stillness, I remembered something deeper. I opened the Bible, and I found echoes of my pain in the cries of the prophets and heroes. Elijah, Jonah, Moses - they too reached breaking points. They too cried, “Lord, I’m done. Enough of it. Kill me!.” They weren’t faithless - they were human. Crushed. Overwhelmed. But they didn’t stay down.
They got back up.
Because God didn’t abandon them in the dark. He walked with them through it. He whispered truth into their despair. And He does the same for us.
