We have four eagles visiting the lake outside our office window nearly every day right now. The first sighting pulled us away from our desks and brought great oooohs and ahhhhs of appreciation. People were stopping on the roadway to stare. By the second or third week, we were saying to patients, “Oh, yes. Those eagles drop by most days to fish for a while.” Ho hum.

But, it isn’t ho hum at all. Every time I see one of the great birds with the white head, I think of Holy Hill.

I suppose it was nearly fifteen years ago we first saw the painting. It was a double-spired church in the snowy, winter dusk with a bald eagle soaring overhead. Wendell and I were both drawn to the painting titled Holy Hill. We ordered it and spent an entire grocery budget getting it framed. For years it hung over our sofa and evoked all kinds of emotions when we studied it. Majesty. Tranquility. Freedom. Glory.

Fast-forward a dozen years or so. I have driven nine hours to visit Wendell in a recovery center for impaired physicians. He is there to deal with a prescription drug addiction and all the issues that brought it on.

“Let’s take a drive today,” he says. “I want to show you Holy Hill.”

Evidently, our painting was not the figment of someone’s imagination. It was the beautiful rendering of a famous Catholic church in Wisconsin. We stood in the courtyard that afternoon and looked out over the hills captured so perfectly in our picture. It was like stepping into a storybook for me. And, while we stood holding hands, an eagle flew overhead.

I think that moment settled things for me. It was as if God were reminding me that He had seen this journey long before we took it. In fact, He had prepared the way.

Today, our life is far from perfect. But it is much closer to that scene of tranquility than it has ever been before. And, because fo that, the eagles on our lake still thrill me.