The Cockatoo Run
The white Cockatoo is an Australian parrot and it lives in the
Eastern mountains in huge flocks. By following the Cockatoos, people found
sights and views not known before and small communities were established in
those isolated places. In time, a train line was built through the enchanting
country, to the wonderful sights across the Illawarra Escarpment with its views
of the mountains and the ocean beyond, and on to a little town called Robertson.
The journey came to be known as ‘the Cockatoo run,’ and it is still valued by
the train drivers who travel it as much as by nature-loving tourists.
Talking about it, the Train Driver said, ‘It reminds me of another story. I
regularly drive a freight train across a bridge and under the bridge there is a
permanent water hole where an Eel had made his home. We would often see the Eel
basking in the last rays of the setting run on a rock near his pool. Sometimes
we would see him swimming around in it.
‘Then a severe drought crept across the land. It took its toll beneath the
bridge, the water dried up and the Eel moved away.
‘The Eel reminded me of some-one else who had to move house. There was an awful
drought and the water dried up, just like it did at the Eel’s home. So God told
Elijah to leave home and live near a brook called Cherith.
‘God went with him and sent him a travelling restaurant of Ravens with food
every morning and every evening. I sometimes wonder,’ concluded the Train
Driver, ‘if the path to Cherith was ever known as “Ravens Run.”’ (1st
Kings 17:1-6.)
Jesus knows about making serious changes. He understands our losses and our
grieving because he left his home, too. He left heaven when he came to earth to
live with us and he took on a new identity. He even he had to flee for his life
as a refugee with his parents during a bad political time.
He knows how we feel about serious changes and he assures us he is with us.
‘Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew
28:20).
Elizabeth Price