Ok friends! Have you got the stamina to read this little, maybe not so little story of mine? Never underestimate God’s sense of humour! The Lord offered my family some light relief lastnight after a day of very emotional ups and downs due to Toby leaving us. We had arrived back from Vigil Mass around 8pm, all of us kind of exhausted. All showered by 9pm. Seems like a pretty ordinary night eh! Well looks like God had other Plans! My husband decided to check on the chickens to shut their house as we inadvertently left it open though the main gate to the pen was shut. He came back “No chickens!”. They absconded! So after chatting on facebook about another 5 minutes after they all conceded defeat thinking ‘Dumb chooks!’ and happy to remain on their comfortable sofa, Mum (that would be me), decides if Jesus is going to look for all His lost lambs, then I am going to look for our lost chooks! This was no mean feat of endurance. Grabbing a torch that was only partially charged, I set out over our rocky, unlevel and 10 degree slope of 3 acres out of a 6 acre paddock! You know how voices travel at night? Well I was banking on those feral girls to call out when I am going ‘Here chook-chook’! How stupid am I! So no sound, not a cackle! I continued through the maze of thorny lantana bushes as thinking I have to get ‘into’ the mind of an escapee chicken, I would roost in a lantana bush just to make it hard for ‘that chicken whisperer’- again – that would be me…. Well I tried lining up the section of chook fence down the paddock and walked it first. Well what do you know! A white chicken – Thankyou Lord, a white one is easy to spot in the dark! Knowing I am not quick on my feet in thongs that are soaked from days of rain – again thankyou Lord, (after severe drought), I took a mental picture of where she was and headed for home then calling to ‘anyone’ who can help their mother who just experienced perilous conditions, to be chicken herders! No reply! “Um, boys, it’s your mother speaking! Get down here now and help herd this chook! PLEASE!” A mother in dire straits knows the ‘please’ word is very important if you want to get aforesaid mentioned children to move their butts! Right then, down they come, complaining all the way of what they were missing in the movie. We grabbed the cat crate and headed into the darkness. Remember I said I took the partially charged torch. Just file that away for now…. So off we go! Great! Now three of us can ‘co-operate’ to bring our littlest white girl home! Yeah right! Retracing the steps I took with boys still complaining, I shone the torch on the little varmint! Quite content with her new-found home, one son undid the flap to the crate, got on one side, mother in the middle and other son on the left. Ok! Now get her! See now you think I am going to tell you that she ran or flew or something – no, she just reasonably considered our feelings and decided ‘it’s for the best’…. No biggie! Number 2, where are you? We have only had them for 10 days so no names as yet! So we searched…..and we searched….no chickens! Oh but we searched some more and some more still. Covered around the 3 acres. Getting dirty, sweaty, and puffed from the slope! No matter, we were determined to bring our girls home! Then disaster struck! Bearing in mind I said God has a sense of humour! We were looking for two BLACK ones and one red one! Notice how the ‘black’ ones is in capitals….. You know that torch? HMMM! Not happy Jan! Battery died! Ok now my boys and I had to regroup. “Ok, you go and get another torch’, ‘No you go’. “I’m staying to look after Mum’. Enough already! Luckily, if you want to call it that - the torch retained ‘blinking’ mode which meant if you click it twice, it blinks. Oh very helpful on a pitch black night looking for BLACK chooks! But we persevered remembering the lost lambs that Jesus would not give up on! Blink, blink, blink. ‘Mum my eyes are not doing well with this!”. Shoosh and keep looking! ‘Sshh! What was that?” – turns out – not a chicken! This went on for, oh probably about another 10 minutes. One son stepped on a huge canetoad or at least thought he did, couldn’t tell – it was too dark. Thankyou Lord. The other son just kept laughing! I was quietly saying “God thankyou for relieving the sorrow today”. (How Good is our God!) Then success! A brown chicken! In the same lantana bush as the white one! So son number 2, when he was asked, ‘Can you see another one on that side?’ ‘No none here!’ Great – so how much time did we lose looking everywhere else then! So cosy chickens in crate! Number 3! ‘Here, chook-chook!” Voila! She was 2 lantana bushes away! We are on a winner! NOT! Torch was no driving all of us massively insane! Another 15 minutes, now covering most of the paddock, we decided ‘she is too good for us, let’s head home’. And we did! Content somewhat that we managed to retrieve 3 out of our 4. Thought we would do better in the morning when a black chicken would be easily spotted. Ladies were all back in their house, bolted shut! Nighty- night!. This morning, I woke to cackling! I thought in my stupor, is that one chook or 3 chooks? So out I go, nightie on, forgetting my glasses (blind as a bat) and headed down with my now charged torch. Through the paddock I go! Oh wait! It’s daylight, why do I have a torch? Remember, I’m in a stupor! All over the place I go. Heat is up! Eyes are trying hard to focus! No chicken. ‘Fox got her, blast!’ So I said to Jesus, ‘Sorry I have let the one lost lamb to fend for itself and am giving up’. Feeling a little down, I headed home. If that stupid chook has got itself eaten, well good on the fox for having a nice dinner. Not good thoughts, but I was so tired. Having a little conversation with God and St Anthony and telling them that I am grateful to have at least 3 chickens, quite a good find, so please don’t think badly of me for giving up etc etc. Before going to the house, I thought (well not me actually), I better just go over to the tractor and see if she’s there. Nope! Darn! Then ‘cackle-cackle’. What?!!! Closer and closer to the sound I step…..well what do you know! Here is the black chicken, after having covered 3 acres of unforgiving terrain – well not really – in the lavender hedge! She likes lavender! Ok chicken no. 4 is now reunited with her friends. Another conversation with God and St Anthony, with a much more positive complexion to it! So if you managed to stay reading, you can see that God, indeed does have a sense of humour, even in the ‘down’ times. He manages to get people helping eachother, using faulty equipment, stepping on horrible things, getting dirty and doing the best job of being with eachother as family! Are you seeing a connection to this Mission we are on? We are family groping in the dark, seeking the lost souls for Jesus. Our sins still ‘dirty’ us up but through it all, God is bringing us ever closer to His Gift - Paradise! We might get caught up by obstacles, we might find ourselves in uncomfortable situations, the light might dim or flicker, but He is with us all the way and He will reward us for our efforts, no matter how small! God doesn’t want us to give up, but He is also saying when we feel like giving up and conceding defeat, He will take us to that next step to keep us focussed and on this journey with Him! All His lost lambs will be found! Every one of them!
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 21:08:11 +0000
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