I have about 50 chickens (not sure of the exact number at this very moment, but give or take, about 50). Chickens are messy, especially with their food. They scratch it out of the feeder and fling it everywhere, and on some level, this is not surprising. What does surprise me – and continues to surprise me daily – is how they treat their water.
They spill it, walk in it, fling dirt into it, and most disgustingly – they defecate in it (that’s take a crap in it for those of us who were public school educated). I mean, they can start out with crystal clear water in the morning, and by evening it looks like a Louisiana bayou, and you can’t help but wonder what lies beneath the murky surface. I have to chuckle at some of the chicken keeping forums out there. Time after time after time I read, “Make sure your chickens get clean water daily.” When I read this, I want to ask, “Why? They clearly don’t prefer it that way?” But alas, Back Yard Chickens is our Bible, so we soldier on.
Along those same lines, chickens fairly frequently literally bite the hand that feeds them. I have a batch of 3 “baby” roosters that are not so “baby” anymore who routinely grab the pad of skin between my thumb and forefinger or on the most tender spot on the inside of my wrist. I mean, they know the most painful place to bite me, you’d think they’d know how to keep their water clean, right? Apparently, I expect too much. (Just between you and me, these “babies” are freezer bound in the not-too-distant future, but we’ll just keep that to ourselves for now.)
relationships with the people in our lives are messy. They come in all shapes and sizes – parent, child, step-parent, step-child, husband , wife, employer, employee, friend, lover…the potential connections and relationships that define us are vast.
This has been a challenging week for me in the relationship department, and on many levels it has resembled the chicken coop, mostly in the children and employee (former employee) departments.
One of the biggest challenges for me is that I routinely get my feelings hurt and rant and rave about how poorly they are treating me and how I don’t deserve that. My poor husband should be canonized to sainthood, because he has borne the brunt of my tirades on more than one occasion over the years (last week?) about how hurt I am in the midst of this relationship or that. (As I write this now, I have to smile just a bit, as I am reminded of our children when they were young who would decry, “It’s not fair!” to which we would reply, “Life’s not fair.”) Though it is not uncommon for both employees (former) and children to bite the hand that feeds (or in the case of former employees and grown children, fed them), like the baby roosters, children and step-children know the most tender spots to bite, the places that hurt the most.
When I cry and complain to my husband, “How could they do that after <fill in the blank>,” he is fond of replying, “Because it is all about them,” and he is 100% correct. Adding to the complexity of it all, as children grow older, they often appear to have “gotten it” or grown out of their self-centeredness, and then things level out, so you think all that is behind you now. And then, out of the blue, someone flips a switch, and we are back to square one (or at least two steps back). It can be a little emotionally disorienting.
Nevertheless, I return to the idea that it is all bout them, and that is true, but the thing that has just occurred to me – the epiphany I have just experienced – is that when I get my feelings hurt and rant and rave about how poorly I am being treated I am making it all about me, and yes, life is not fair, and I should heed my own advice (or actually my father’s that I have passed down to my own children).
While Back Yard Chickens might be the Bible for raising chickens, the Holy Bible is the “Bible” for doing life, and while the human side of me wants to say, “Serves them right,” or “Well, if they’re not gonna…, then I’m not gonna…,” or “What goes ‘round, comes ‘round,” Scripture and – more importantly – the Savior that I serve has a higher standard.
Just as I refill the chicken’s nasty, poo-filled water every morning with fresh, clean water, the Bible tells us that Jesus does the same for those who believe in Him (and no one can top we humans when it comes to crapping in our water bowl): John 7:37-38 New Living Translation
On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
Unlike the “baby” roosters, our ungrateful children don’t end up in the freezer (though gotta’ say that it was touch and go a few times there when they were teenagers). Regardless of whether they appreciate us or don’t, or whether they are speaking to us because we are on good terms, or aren’t speaking to us because we have challenged some of their choices…whatever the circumstances, we are called by Christ to offer fresh, clean water despite the human temptation to give them a good old-fashioned swirly in the Texaco toilet. Likewise for the former employees in our lives into whom we have invested, only to have them “crap in the water bowl” as it were.
Note to self; it’s not about me. It’s about the Amazing God I serve. Water anyone?