Flamingos
I don’t know about you, but I happen to love flamingos. The way they stand on one leg, the way they sleep standing up, and especially their beautiful bright pink coloring. However, recently I learned an interesting fact about a flamingo’s coloring. Flamingos are born white or grey and they acquire their bright pink coloring from the foods and nutrients they eat. But, when a flamingo is ill or while adult flamingos are raising their young, they lose a lot of those nutrients providing for their baby, which makes them become pale in color. This pale coloring can last for several years while they are in a more depleted state. But, the good news is… they can become pink again! Once they are in a new stage and start to get their nutrients and energy back, their pink color returns!
I find it interesting, that we as humans experience something similar when we are going through seasons of increased output, over exertion, caretaking, sickness, suffering and depletion. We may not lose our bright pink pigment like flamingos do, but we can often feel “less like ourselves,” like the sparkle in our eyes is dulled, and we don’t quite have the zest we once had.
I came across a verse recently that quite literally expressed this feeling. In Psalm 13, David writes:
“O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
2 How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
3 Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
4 Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
6 I will sing to the Lord
because He is good to me.” (Psalm 13:1-6 NLT)
I find it so unique that David literally asked God to “return the sparkle to his eyes.” There is hope for restoration and renewal even when we feel like we have lost our sense of self, joy, strength, or sparkle. Throughout the Bible, we find so many promises of restoration, so many promises of hope in affliction.
1 Peter 5:10 states, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
God promises that there is an end date on suffering and He Himself will “restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us.” If we break that down a little bit to better understand what is being promised to us we see that God Himself will:
Restore us: To render us fit, sound, complete; to mend us; to strengthen us; to perfect us; to make us complete; to make us what we ought to be;
Confirm us: To make us stable, to firmly place us, to set us fast, to strengthen us, to make us firm, to render us constant;
Strengthen us: To make us strong, to strengthen our soul, to strengthen our body or vigor, to strengthen our spiritual knowledge and power;
Establish us: To lay our foundation, to found us, to settle us.
(Definitions taken from Strong’s Interlinear Concordance)
We can see through these definitions that God is not simply in the business of pushing us onward in a weakened state for the rest of our existence. No, in fact, Isaiah 42:3 states, “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” Instead, He is in the business of RESTORING us. He is up to far more than we are able to imagine in the midst of our suffering.
If you find yourself in a season of suffering: a season where you don’t quite feel like yourself or like you have lost the “sparkle in your eyes,” don’t lose hope. God promises that He Himself will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us in His time. And, there are resources to help! We at Heartlife would love to support you on your journey to “get your color back” like the flamingos and rediscover your joy, identity, peace and purpose. Reach out today for more support!
Meet Cammie Easley, LPC-MHSP, Director of Child & Adolescent Services!
Cammie graduated with her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in May of 2014 from Denver Seminary in Denver, CO.
Throughout her career as a counselor, Cammie has been passionate about helping individuals of all ages overcome anxiety and depression, heal from past traumas, process their own grief, and develop into the healthy and whole people that God designed them to be.
She believes firmly that seasons of hardship are God’s tool which He uses to make us more like Himself and to reveal Himself to us in ways that we would not otherwise come to intimately know. One of her greatest joys in counseling is helping individuals figure out how they can heal in a holistic way that incorporates their body, mind, and spirit.