Photo credit: Carmel Grace Photography (used with permission)

I have always had a love for the stunning rainbow lorikeet. As a child, I remember every year looking forward to the season when my mother's magnificent Golden Pendas would come into bloom, their tender branches dripping with colour as these beautiful birds enjoyed the sweet nectar, delicately moving from blossom to blossom with expert precision. In the late afternoon as the sun would begin to set, my sister and I would sometimes perch on the front letterbox, the red brick still warm beneath us from the noonday sun, and watch the trees dance and sway as a whole family of these brilliantly coloured birds delighting in this sweet treat, filling the sky with their joyous call.
Many years later, many hundreds of kilometres away, the lorikeets still come. In the late summer afternoons, as the grevilleas and eucalypts come into bloom down at the family farm, filling the warm afternoon air with the scent of their blossom, I am blessed by the same spectacular sunset. And I see the silhouettes of these same beautiful birds high up in the trees, filling the sky with their joyous call, delighting in the same sweet nectar provided by their Heavenly Father.
I am reminded that, though most things change in this uncertain and broken world, one thing remains constant. My Heavenly Father, who knows the needs of each of these spectacular birds He has made, providing delicious food flowing year after year - He is the One thing in my life that never changes. As He knows and cares for the needs of these happy little creatures, so He knows my needs. There is nothing that I need that I do not have. And so, like each of these little birds He so treasures, so too do I sing, giving up my worry for tomorrow, and replacing it with a joy for the blessings of today.
I have chosen to depict this beautiful bird in a moment rare stillness as he rests his beautiful wings. The bird gazes into the distance, peaceful and content, with not a thought for what tomorrow may bring.