Shortly after I converted, I got a call from a lady who was on a mission to find a painting of a Curve-billed Thrasher because they reminded her of her deceased husband. I told her I could probably do one for her and set up an appointment to meet her and for her to see some of my work.
The day I was to meet her I was feeling sort of beat up. The night before I had gotten into a conversation about Catholicism and was being asked some very pointed difficult questions for this new Catholic to answer. It left me sort of drained.
Anyways, I knew from the prayer of St. Francis that it's better to console to be consoled so I prepared myself to meet my prospective client.
As it turned out, she was a rather young woman. She explained to me how her husband had suddenly died playing basket ball one day because he unknowingly had a faulty heart. It was obvious to me that this man was the love of her life and meant the world to her. Even two years later her pain was still tangible. She told me that in her grief one day, she asked God for a sign that her husband was OK (this woman was a devout Catholic BTW) when a Curve-billed Thrasher jumped up on the fence next to her and began to run back and forth.
We talked a little bit about how she would like her picture done, agreed on a price and off she went. That night, as I related the story to my wife, tears running down our cheeks, I looked out the back door, and looking through the window at us was a Curve-billed Thrasher.
I finished the commission. She was very happy with it as was her young son who shared the name of his father. "Daddy!" he shouted when he saw the painting.
You might think this is the end of the story, but several weeks later I teaching art classes at a local retirement community. I like to teach and demonstrate on what I'm learning lately so I related the story about the lady and her husband and the Curve-billed Thrasher while I demonstrated the techniques I used for the picture.
At the break, an elderly gentleman approached me and asked me if the man in the story was named Steve. "Why yes he was" I replied. It turns out Steve was the gentleman's son and little Steve was his grandson with whom he had just walked in the desert with that morning.
I never had a lot of religious convictions, but long before I converted, I often wondered if birds aren't somehow God's messengers from heaven. As I came into the Church I wondered if I might have to toss out this idea and then I remembered the baptism of our Lord. It was God's idea first.
