Glide

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But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles . . .”

I teach English to Chinese children. It’s with a company called VIPKIDS, and it’s kind of a side-gig for me. Sweet kids, easy work, flexible schedule, and good pay. Wins all around.

One of the units I frequently teach is “Animals and Their Bodies”. Birds have wings. Horses have hooves. Tigers have claws. (“Hooves” and “claws” – you’d be surprised how difficult those are to pronounce correctly.) This unit also includes verbs of motion: Crabs crawl. Snakes slither. Kangaroos hop. Horses gallop. Doing classes over a screen with young, easily distracted children who don’t know the language well requires a lot of props (glad I kept the girls’ tub of animal toys), a lot of body language (I’ve knocked more than one item off of the bookshelf behind me), a lot of sound effects (“Boing . . rawr!! . . . ssssslitherrrrr”), and a stinkin’ lot of energy at five in the morning. It’s a good thing they pay me well.

This is the unit where I have to teach the difference between “fly” and “glide”. Generally, the students in these lessons don’t have strong enough English yet for me to explain the difference in words, so I have to demonstrate. I flap my arms up and down frantically and say, “I am flying!” Then I hold my arms out steadily and sway back and forth: “I am gli-i-iding!” They get the idea pretty quickly and usually stick their arms out and glide with me. Because I’m engaging like that. That’s what I get paid the big bucks for.

But I always find it interesting that these lessons list one particular bird as the one who glides: the eagle.

Birds fly. But eagles glide.

They shall mount up with wings as eagles . . .

Isaiah 40 is a favorite scripture passage, but it has more meaning for me these days. 2020 kicked my butt to the ends of the earth. I can’t count the number of days I went to bed tearful and completely exhausted from the effort of flapping my pathetic little wings, desperately trying to propel myself forward or at least stay in the air.

Not until I had expended all the mental and emotional energy I could muster did I remember that waiting on the Lord requires eagle’s wings – wings made for gliding. Not frenetic flapping. Just simple soaring. Riding on the wind, letting it carry me forward.

When I am mounted on eagle’s wings, my strength is renewed. Which is why I can run and not grow weary . . . walk and not faint.

I’m trying to build up some "body memory" this year, training myself to “mount up” as Isaiah instructs me from the start, not just when it gets hard. Then I’ll be ready when the earthquakes come again.

Cuz God gave me wings like an eagle, friends. And eagles gli-i-ide.

 

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