The Eagle

I snapped a photo of this eagle on the beach in Ocean Shores, WA.

My husband recently asked what I watch on TikTok. He assumed it was cat videos, and while those do pop up in my feed sometimes, what’s really caught my attention lately is watching a bonded pair of bald eagles, Jackie and Shadow, and their new babies (eaglets). These eagles live in Big Bear Valley in CA, and a live-streamed camera gives a close-up view of their nest. If you’ve never heard of them before, you can find more info at the website here.

Eagles have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s because, when I was a kid, eagles were an endangered species. I don’t remember seeing one in the wild back then, though I probably did since I grew up in Washington State, where they were only listed as threatened at the time. Now that they’re no longer endangered, I spot them fairly often near home. The last time I saw one up close and personal, it swooped down in front of my car to grab some fresh roadkill (not my doing!).

Now, having a live feed of Jackie and Shadow’s nest, I find myself even more fascinated, especially as they raise their eaglets! Eagles are incredible creatures, and honestly, we could learn a few things from them about dedication as parents. But what I wasn’t prepared for was how deeply I’d feel it when they lost one of their babies. One day, it was there, eating and snuggled up in the nest. But after a fierce storm, it was suddenly lifeless, lying still among the other two eaglets. It took Jackie and Shadow a few days to remove the baby’s body from the nest. While I’m no eagle expert, I can’t help but feel that, even in death, they were still protecting it.

The loss of any baby is heartbreaking. And maybe I teared up not just because of the eaglet but because grief has a way of bringing up our own losses. Watching those parents keep going despite their loss was a reminder that nature doesn’t pause for sorrow, and neither does life. It keeps moving forward, no matter what we face.

But here’s something that struck me: Jackie and Shadow are guided primarily by instinct, not emotion. As eagles, they are symbols of strength yet they don’t feel things in the same way humans do - at least, not in a way we understand. They endure life’s storms, even in 100mph winds. They protect their young fiercely from predators and the elements. They listen, they wait, they act. They still lose eaglets. And yet, they persist. They don’t give up; instead, they fight to live.

That got me thinking… Do we let our emotions make us weak or strong? Are we, as humans, stronger than eagles? I believe so. Yet, I think many of us view our feelings as a flaw, rather than a source of strength. Some might even let them hold us back from fully living. But what if we looked at them differently? What if, instead of seeing our emotions as weaknesses, we embraced them as sources of strength? Not by acting impulsively or negatively, but by processing and understanding them so we can use them as tools to navigate this sometimes harsh world with resilience.

Just like Jackie and Shadow press on through their challenges, we too can rise above ours. Our emotions don’t have to be a burden. They can fuel our resilience, if we choose to process them, pushing us to keep moving forward and thriving in life. After all, it's not about avoiding the storms in our lifetime, but how we navigate them that shapes who we are. We, too, can be symbols of strength. Let’s start looking at ourselves that way.

xo

P.S.

I remember an exact moment when an eagle became a personal symbol of strength for me. It was the last week of February 2020. I had a routine mammogram earlier in the week. A few days later, while driving, I received a call from the clinic saying they'd found something suspicious on my mammogram and wanted me to come in for further imaging. After I hung up, fear started creeping in.

The next moment, something caught my eye - an eagle soared across the sky above me. Before I could even pray, that eagle appeared, and I knew God had placed it there for me. The eagle’s appearance was more than just a coincidence; it became a symbol of strength and peace in that moment. I watched the eagle as I drove and it reminded me of Isaiah 40:31: "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

That verse washed over me, quieting the fear. Whatever was ahead, I knew I wouldn’t face it alone. I didn’t realize then how much that peace would mean to me later on. After the follow-up mammogram, the results suggested only a 3% chance of cancer, and I chose to wait for another follow-up in six months instead of rushing into a breast biopsy. The very next day, on February 29, 2020, Washington State reported its first Covid death.

Had the cancer diagnosis come then, I would have faced cancer treatment alone, due to the restrictions from the pandemic that soon followed.  But because I waited, when the time came for me to battle cancer, I didn’t have to walk that road by myself. God knew. He saw ahead to what I couldn’t see. And He sent me a reminder - an eagle in the sky - to let me know I would have the strength to get through whatever came next. And I did.