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Stories Home
FEED MY DUCKS
Friday, March 17 2006 @ 11:53 AM EST
Contributed by: JoeNamyst
FEED MY DUCKS
As far back as I can recall I have had an interest, you might even say a love for, the rearing of poultry. I believe I was about three or four years old when my parents brought home several Rhode Island Reds and so began my high regard for fowl. During my youth I raised quite a variety. There were the majestic Buff Cochins with their muscular build and feathery legs, the silly looking Polish chickens with the crazy hair, and the Araucana that laid the colored eggs. I could go on but most people don’t share my fascination with the birds-of-a-feather. I will add, however, chickens were not the only birds I fancied, as you will soon see.
I learned plenty about life from my feathery friends. There was "Big Bud" who, for a brief period in his life, taught me that friends were capable of turning on you, prompting me to write this little poem, at about the age of ten:
Most people think of chicken,
As plain ole finger lickin’.
But this notion I would like to end,
By telling you about a certain friend.
My friend was white -- as white as snow,
And how he came to hate me, I’ll never know,
One day we were walking side by side,
When my friend started taking a different stride,
All at once I felt a sharp pain,
And then what happened was surely a shame.
So, if you’re at my house eating finger lickin’,
Don’t be surprised if it’s that chicken.
This story actually has a happy ending. Big Bud was brutally beaten by another rooster and nursed back to health in our bath tub. After seeing my hand of mercy on his life, he never turned on me again. Another life lesson, I think.
As I alluded to earlier, chickens were not my only feathered friends. Once, I raised some Mallard ducks. It is at this point that this story truly does turn fowl. If you know anything about ducks, you know that Mallards are the wild ducks that fly south in the winter. And so did mine. Surprisingly, some returned to their home by the six-foot round swimming pool they had called home as ducklings. They returned to rear their own young.
I remember one morning my mother reminded me that I needed to feed and water the ducks before leaving for church. I didn’t. I was much too busy doing what kids do. When we returned from church a couple hours later I went to check on the ducks and found that the mother had taken her newborn ducklings for a swim in the pool. The water level was low and the newly-hatched ducklings were too small to get out. By the time I arrived most of the ducklings were dead. I remember very clearly the agony of that day.
You see, I had briefly taken my eyes off of the responsibility of caring for my ducks. The end was truly an utter end for those fluffy little ducklings. That, unfortunately, is a reality many of us will, or have come face-to-face with. As was the case for me, the priorities of the day will shrink as we see the reality of a lost soul, or a hurting friend who might have been reached -- had we only taken the time.
In John 21, Jesus asks this question of Peter, "Simon, son of Jona, lovest thou me more than these?" It’s a question that He still asks of each of us. Do we love Jesus more than our self, our mother, our spouse, our children? Is doing His will more important than our own interests and pursuits? If the answer is "yes" then we have an obligation to "Feed His Sheep," as Peter was commanded to do. When we shrink from this commitment, we fail the Lord, just as I failed those ducklings many years ago. |
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