By Katy Mariotti

Did You Let It In?

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Philippians 4:8 English Standard Version

Woodpeckers are the worst. Before I lived in the forest, I had no idea. My basic understanding of woodpeckers came from the cartoon Woody the Woodpecker. Beyond that, I thought they were rare creatures, and if I saw them I would get excited. Look! A REAL woodpecker! Wow!

Not wow. As stated, I live in the forest. In a wooden house. There are a wide range of woodpeckers. Some think our house is a tree in which they can find bugs, and once we yell at them they find a different tree to get their snack. Those are the easy woodpeckers. I can live with those. Other woodpeckers like to peck loudly to impress the ladies, including on the satellite dish atop our house. Not my favorite noise, especially first thing in the morning.

But the worst woodpeckers? They’re the ones that made a hole in the side of our house before we even moved in.  They’re the nesting woodpeckers. Fun fact: that hole is directly behind the bed in our bedroom. For years, we’ve had woodpeckers find it and settle in. They peck around to make it bigger. We can hear them moving in the wall RIGHT ABOVE OUR HEADS at sun up. We pound on the wall and some woodpeckers will fly off, but not the nesting ones. The only thing that works is throwing pinecones at them, but they always come back. My husband has filled the hole with spray foam (which they can peck out). We’ve covered it with a paper picture of a bird, which works until it falls off our house.

You might, as you’re reading this, think “why don’t you just cover the hole with something more substantial?” People often use old license plates to do this because they’re shiny and the birds don’t like shiny things. I could give lots of excuses, such as that the hole is quite high up and hard to get to, but the truth is we just haven’t.

I love the Philippians verse about thinking. I come back to it a lot in my own reading. As humans, we live in a forest of thoughts, and the woodpeckers are going to come. Some negative thoughts we can shoo away easily, but some thoughts we let settle in and they fester and settle. Then we start to believe they are true. Does this mean we should live in dishonesty and denial? No! But the verse in Philippians is a good way to cover up the hole and consider our thoughts. Step back and turn the verse into a question: Is what I’m thinking true? Is it honorable? Is it fair? How can I focus on what is excellent, and good, and lovely?

I pray that we can oust our negative woodpeckers, literally and figuratively!

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado