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There is a myth or fable about the way the birds got their wings at the beginning. They were made first without wings. Then God made the wings and put them down before the wingless birds, and said to them, “Come, take up these burdens and bear them.” The birds had lovely plumage and sweet voices; they could sing, and their feathers gleamed in the sunshine, but they could not soar into the air. They hesitated at first when bidden to take up the burdens that lay at their feet, but soon they obeyed, and taking up the wings in their beaks, laid them on their shoulders to carry them. For a little while the load seeded heavy and hard to bear. But presently, as they went on carrying the burdens, folding them over their hearts, the wings grew fast to their little bodies, and soon they discovered how to use them, and were lifted by them up into the air. The weights became wings.
It is a parable. We are the wingless birds, and our duties and tasks are the pinions God has made to lift us up and carry us heavenward. We look at our burdens and heavy loads and shrink from them. But as we lift them and bind them about our hearts they become wings, and on them we rise and soar toward God. There is no burden, which if we lift it cheerfully, and bear it with love in our heart, will not become a blessing to us. God means our tasks to be our helpers heavenward. To shrink from a duty or to refuse to bend our shoulders to receive a load is to decline a new opportunity for growth.