A soft thud. Another bird splayed on the ground, stunned and dazed. My son picks the magnificent male cardinal up, cradling it in the palm of his hand. It looks up at him as if to say, "What on earth happened to me?"

He sits it gently on top of a fencepost and we watch it from inside, checking every few minutes to see if it has flown away. It sits there for over forty minutes, flipping its tail, and shaking its head back and forth. I comment that it probably has brain damage, or severe nerve damage and that we may have to put it out of its misery.

I keep working on our Christmas dinner, peeking out the window every few minutes. The bird still sits there, his movement like a little mechanical statue run by batteries. I almost begin to cry, not wanting another window fatality. Especially on Christmas.

Finally, I mutter a simple little prayer ... "Please let him fly away and be okay. No death today, not today. Please, not on Christmas. Show me what you can do, Lord. Show me."

And He did.