LITTLE SPARROWS
A children’s story: Hope and Fret are Two sparrows that learn about the price of anxiety.
LITTLE SPARROWS
The forest was dense, lush and vivid and it seemed painted by a dreamer. There lived two sister sparrows: Hope and Fretina. While their names suggested their temperaments, Fretina went by the nickname “Fret,” which suited her twitchy disposition perfectly.
Life in the canopy was grand, and every daily need was met by the forest’s bounty. Hope, a creature of pure sunshine, spent her days darting through the light, her voice a sweet, melodic ribbon that wrapped around the trees and encouraged the flowers to nod.
Fret, however, was a frantic little thing. She buzzed through the air like a caffeinated bumblebee, always trembling as if the sky were made of thin ice. While other birds sang melodies, Fret only emitted a nervous, stuttering twitter: “Oh, my! What if? What shall I do? Oh, my!” She was so perpetually scattered—fluttering here, diving there, and worrying everywhere—that the local woodland creatures whispered she was a true “birdbrain.” And, to be quite fair, she often felt like one.
One golden morning, as the sisters fluttered together, Hope came to a sudden, graceful halt. Below them, a meadow erupted in a sea of magnificent, velvet-petaled lilies.
“Oh, Fret! Look!” Hope chirped, circling the blossoms in sheer delight. “They grow with such effortless grace. No toil, no planning, no checking the pantry—yet look at their exquisite splendor!”
Fret landed on a nearby twig, though she didn’t settle; she kept bouncing up and down, eyes wide and darting. “They’re pretty, Hope, sure. But lilies don’t have to hunt for worms or knit a nest out of twigs and spiderwebs. They just… sit there.”
Hope landed gently beside her, tucking her wings in. “They don’t worry about tomorrow, yet they bloom like royalty. We should learn from them! We should trust that our Heavenly Father, who feeds the lilies, will take care of us, too. You know, with that lovely spirit hidden inside, you really ought to be called ‘Tina’ instead of ‘Fret’.”
Fret ruffled her feathers until she looked like a miniature, distressed dandelion. “I like my name! It shows I care deeply. It’s my duty to fret! What if the winter is too long? What if we run out of seeds? It shows I care. If I don’t worry about the future, who will?”
Hope nudged her sister with a soft wing. “Our Creator cares for us more than the lilies and even more than the rest of the birds. If we seek His heart, our needs will always be met. Why not trade your worries for a bit of joy?”
Fret shook her head, determined to hold onto her anxiety like a prized treasure. “I want the world to know I take my living seriously!”
But the world has a way of teaching us what we refuse to learn.
One evening, a fierce, howling storm tore through the forest, dismantling both their homes in a flurry of broken twigs and scattered leaves. Hope hunkered down in the crook of a sturdy oak, heart hammering but spirit anchored, knowing she was under a higher protection.
Fret, however, spent the night in a whirlwind of panic, darting through the gale, searching for safety that wasn’t there. By dawn, she was exhausted, bedraggled, and huddled in a cold, lonely cranny. In the quiet after the storm, the realization hit her: her worrying hadn’t built a single sturdy wall or kept a single raindrop from falling.
She found Hope and, with a soft, chastened flutter, whispered, “You were right. My anxiety didn’t add a single moment to my life. It didn’t fix the nest; it just stole my peace.”
From that day on, Fret turned a new leaf.
“I’ve been a silly bird,” she told her sister, a small, genuine smile finally reaching her eyes. “Worry is just a thief, and I’m tired of being robbed. Please, call me Tina from now on. I’m going to trust the Provider, not the panic.”
Tina learned to let the “what-ifs” drift away on the breeze. She began to live in the present, finding that when she stopped trying to carry the weight of the sky on her own wings, she was finally light enough to soar.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on... Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ... But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
— Matthew 6:25-26, 33 (ESV)
Beautiful!