White eyes and sparrows

When I was pregnant with Sophia I was swimming one day when I noticed our dog carrying something in her mouth. Upon closer inspection I realized it was a little bird. This dog (zebu) is very gentle and hadn't harmed it. She had found it on the ground where it must have fallen from its nest and picked it up. I took the little thing from her, very carefully, it was the tiniest, must gorgeous little bird: a baby cape white eye. Tiny and fragile and perfect. It lay on my open palm and breathed it's final breaths.

It was then that I noticed the commotion going on around me. Two adult white eyes were flitting around in a panic, flying up and down and in circles seemingly searching for their baby.

It broke me.

They were searching in vain. Their child was dead and they didn't even know it. Deep down they must have feared it but they still hoped enough to search. I didn't know what to do. I wanted them to be put out of their misery. I carefully placed the baby up close to where I thought their nest was. They didn't seem to notice. Perhaps they didn't want to notice. Perhaps they wanted to cling on to their last bit of futile hope.

I returned to the pool and sobbed. The situation was too sad. This perfectly formed, delicate, beautiful baby dead too soon. The agony of it's parents hoping against any logic that it might not be so. I stood in the pool hiding my face and sobbing for that little bird and for it's parents.

In Matthew Jesus talks of sparrows being a very cheap commodity and yet even sparrows, if they fall to the ground God knows. The implication is that if He cares for sparrows, how much more does He care for people, for Sophia, for me. If it hurt me so much to see this tragedy, how much more must it have hurt God to see ours.