Free to Soar
One windy spring day,
I observed young people having fun
using the wind to fly their kites.
Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes
filled the skies like beautiful birds
darting and dancing in the heady atmosphere
above the earth.
As the strong winds gusted against the kites,
a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind,
they arose against it to achieve great heights.
They shook and pulled,
but the restraining string
and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow,
facing upward and against the wind.
As the kites struggled and trembled
against the string,
they seemed to say,
"Let me go! Let me go!
I want to be free!"
They soared beautifully
even as they fought
the imposed restriction of the string.
Finally, one of the kites
succeeded in breaking loose.
"Free at last," it seemed to say.
"Free to fly with the wind."
Yet freedom from restraint
simply put it
at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze.
It fluttered ungracefully to the ground
and landed in a tangled mass of weeds
and string against a dead bush.
"Free at last"
free to lie powerless in the dirt,
to be blown helplessly along the ground,
and to lodge lifeless
against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are.
The Lord gives us adversity and restrictions,
rules to follow from which
we can grow and gain strength.
Restraint is a necessary counterpart
to the winds of opposition.
Some of us tug at the rules
so hard that we never soar to
reach the heights
we might have obtained.
We keep part of the commandment
and never rise high enough
to get our tails off the ground.
Let us each rise to the great heights
God has in store for us,
recognizing that some of the restraints
that we may chafe under
are actually the steadying force
that helps us ascend and achieve.