{"id":843,"date":"2024-01-19T23:03:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T23:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/?p=843"},"modified":"2026-03-01T02:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:11:24","slug":"chapter-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/?p=843","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 74                      A Precious Bird"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Thursday, August 16, 1991<\/strong> <br><br>Jared was playing outside with his friend, who lived up the street. Jared came in to tell me there was a dead bird on the sidewalk. My first thought was to tell him not to touch it, but to leave it alone, and I would come out and put it in the garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the look on his face, I could tell he was feeling sad. I didn\u2019t want to add any more heartache to the situation, so I gave Jared some gloves. I told him to get his shovel and go into the backfield and bury it. I wanted to ease his troubled heart, so I told him this would be the bird&#8217;s resting place. I suggested when he was done burying it, he could say a prayer for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Through the window, I could see the two boys in the field behind our property. After they had dug the hole and buried the bird, I saw them bow their heads in prayer. It touched my heart to see Jared say a prayer for the bird. I was sure that Heavenly Father was pleased with the care these two boys had given this little creature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happened next none of us expected. As the boys bowed in humble prayer, the clouds parted, letting a sunbeam shine through the spot where they stood. They looked up at the sky, then at each other. It was as if they realized this was no coincidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jared came running into the house shouting, \u201cDid you see that, Mommy? Did you see that?\u201d&nbsp; I replied, \u201cYes, I saw it!\u201d As the three of us looked out the window, we could still see the light shining on the resting place. I told the boys it was the Heavenly Father\u2019s way of thanking them for their kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:auto 24%\"><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>At first, I had not given this bird much thought. Now I am grateful, Jared, and I got to have this unique experience. One we will most likely always remember.<\/p>\n<\/div><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"161\" height=\"108\" src=\"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Birda-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11251 size-full\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday, August 16, 1991 Jared was playing outside with his friend, who lived up the street. Jared came in to tell me there was a dead bird on the sidewalk. My first thought was to tell him not to touch it, but to leave it alone, and I would come out and put it in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12281,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/12281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}