Yesterday, a precious black and yellow finch sat on my kitchen windowsill. I was so excited by the close encounter that I ran to get my camera, only to find it wasn’t charged. I then grabbed my kids’ new iPods that both have video and picture-taking capabilities but, ummm, couldn’t figure out how to turn them on. (I’m kinda old, okay?)

Then the sweet little bird started flying into the window. Repeatedly. It would land on the thermometer, then fly back up into the window. At first, it was cute and I was playing along. “Are you trying to tell me something, sweet bird? Did Timmy fall into a well? Did one of your bird friends fall and break their wing?” Yes, I was saying these things outloud to a bird, with no one else in the house, mind you.

Okay, so then the awe started to wear off. I was all too quickly over the whole thing. I left the kitchen, but could hear the “dumb bird” pecking against the window two rooms away, annoying the crud out of me. Advice from a friend: “Let it in.” Yes, that’s what I need right now. So then I sort of ignored it, or at least tried.

Then this morning, I flipped on the kitchen light, and I sighed a sigh of relief. No bird. Wrong. Within moments that thing was flying into my window all over again. And I was over it. “You should’ve stopped at your peak,” I explained to the bird, “…at the height of your popularity.” It didn’t listen. (Which turned out to be a good thing because that gave my camera enough time to charge and for me to get these pics…the one on the left shows its cuteness…the one on the right shows the damage it did to my once-clean window. But I’m not bitter.)

Okay, so what’s my point? Lord, tell me this post is about more than a bird, you might be thinking. It is.

Sometimes, we can have too much of a good thing. I went from glee to perturbed in about five minutes. Just like I can go from a glance to lust just as quickly, just as subtlely – with a guy in a movie that’s cute, with a candy bar that I buy three of instead of one (or none), with a necklace that I just have to have because it’s on sale even though I’d bet I have one just like it back at home. We can do this with anything. We must be careful. We must guard our hearts and our minds.

I’m learning and re-learning that our time here is short.That there is much to distract us, much to knock our focus askew, much that we must throw off so that we can run the race unhindered.And sometimes, it’s the good things that can trip us up the worst.What good thing do you have too much of these days?