"How are you doing with your chickens?" our pastor asked Howard across the table as we were having after-church snacks at Braums last night. That gave my husband the perfect opportunity to fill him in on our latest installment in the poultry saga. We had brought the hens home about two weeks ago and transferred them to the country over a week ago, but not without incident either time.
"Funny you should ask," Howard replied with relish. "Yesterday I had dozed off reading on the front porch, when a voice woke me up. 'Howard, Howard,' I heard, and saw our neighbor lady peering through the screen. 'I have a white chicken in my backyard!"
He was instantly awake, though a little puzzled. Grabbing his shoes from the house and calling me to follow, he headed for her backyard. It was our chicken! I suddenly had a flashback of two escaping the first morning we had them, and we'd never recovered one of them. It was limping, obviously a result of vigorous recovery attempts by us and our eager granddog. Our efforts at catching it this time were futile, too, until he called the dog to pin it down, sending the poor thing into shock, from which, thankfully, it recovered in the coop.
"I had just been reading in the Bible about how God had promised the Israelites that their herds would multiply and their flocks would increase," Howard told our pastor, "I prayed that for me, and now he was increasing my flock by one lost hen!"
"It also says He'll give back what the devil has stolen," I chimed in, thinking of how the chicken had been frightened farther away by the dog in the first place. Well, it was satan's fault that dogs are not always the gentle creatures God made in the beginning when they were not carnivorous.
About that time I heard a buzz of conversation and laughter from a group of ladies at the end of the table, and one spoke up that she'd had a prayer answered in church tonight for my husband! "A big old bee was circling around at the back of the church where I was sitting, and suddenly I saw it head straight for the platform where you were playing the guitar," she explained. "Then it looked like it hit your head! I prayed, 'Lord, send that bee back here and don't let it sting Brother Howard!'"
My husband looked surprised and said, "I thought I felt something hit my head, but figured I imagined it and kept on playing!" (I hadn't seen a thing!)
"Anyway," our friend continued, "Just then it did a complete circle and came back and landed right at my feet! Then my husband stepped on it!"
What a curious symbiosis we have with our creature friends. Someday it will be like it was in the beginning, when the lion will lie down with the lamb, and the thorns, thistles and bee stings will be taken away. Until then, sometimes it seems we can't live with them, but we certainly can't live without 'em!
No comments:
Post a Comment