Life With Wings
By Ruth Baird Shaw <><

Author's Note: Have you ever known the feeling of being lifted above ordinary limitations? Not just doing the best you can "under the circumstances" but somehow allowing God to get you out from under the circumstances that would hold you. In my long life, I have found that God is able to lift us up and over the limitations placed on us or the limitations we place upon ourselves.

Cecil B.DeMille, the celebrated film maker, said he was in a canoe in Maine one summer day. Just drifting through the water in a shallow place near the shore. He could see the bottom of the lake and noticed it was covered with water beetles. One of the water beetles crawled up on a canoe, fastened its feet in the gunnels and died.

Three hours later, still floating in the warm sun, DeMille said he witnessed a miracle. The shell of the water beetle cracked open and a tiny head emerged. The wings unfolded and finally a beautiful dragon fly with iridescent body and gossamer wings left the dead carcass and sailed across the surface of the water, shimmering in the afternoon sun…going further in a half second than the water beetle could crawl all day long.

The dragonfly sailed across the surface of the lake. But the water beetles below, unaware of the miracle of metamorphosis, could not see it. DeMille said, "Do you think God would do that for a water beetle and not do it for you and me?"

One Sunday night in 1968, I sat with a congregation listening to my husband Charles Shaw give a sermon. He told about an imaginary conversation someone had with an ordinary looking worm crawling down the road of a busy city. The worm was "out of place" but told the man, "Don't stop me. I'm going to get my wings."

This is the short poem I wrote:

God made the butterfly
And I ...
Stand on earth
And watch it fly

And see that God
Has fashioned wings
For even earthbound
Creeping things!

I know that God
Intended wings
For you and me
Oh! My heart sings!

I've found my wings.
And even I ...
Can over circumstances
Fly!