INSPIRASUNS

When our youngest was little, she and my husband used to run errands after work. They would stop by the bank, pick up a few things at the grocery store, or swing by Lowe’s to pick up something for the latest home project (the youngest really disliked that last stop). It almost became a game with them, when my husband would pick up our daughter, he’d tell her they had to make a few stops on the way home, “Guess where”, he’d ask. “Not the hardware store”, she’d grudgingly say.

As they made their way to various stops, they would sing in the car. At some point, my husband was teaching her “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, you know the song where you have to fill in the blank with an animal. “And on this farm, he had a…” (fill in the blank). Well, at her young age, she ran out of farm animals pretty quickly. She’d start with the easy ones, the cow, the pig, and then the chicken. It wasn’t long before she’d say dog, cat, and then back to the chicken. She did this a couple of times, dropping in the chicken every other animal, when my husband would start to say, “Not another chicken!”. Our daughter would laugh, and the game was officially a regular thing, with the chicken being the animal of choice. They would come home and tell me about their song, and we would all say, “Not another chicken”, and we’d laugh. I remember that belly laugh of that little girl; you couldn’t help but laugh right along with her.

Last night, my husband and I were dealing with an unexpected project when we got home. It ate up quite a bit of time and caused some frustration. Not enough time in this little blog to share all the details, but let’s just say it was not on our list of things to do, and by the time we finished, ya, we were irritated. As I was making dinner, we tried to chat about things that would perk us up and get our minds off the time we had just lost on a project we didn’t intend to work on.

I told my husband things were ready and he could start the grill for us. He headed downstairs to get things going, and I grabbed things to set the table for us. I just happened to look out the window and noticed a bird wandering out of our driveway, crossing the street to the pond on the other side. I have to admit I don’t know for sure what they call this particular bird, however, my husband and I have dubbed it a “Florida chicken”. It has feet like a chicken, and when it walks, it struts like a chicken does. Granted, nothing else resembles a chicken, but we call it that anyway. I couldn’t help but think of the game played when our daughter was young, and I, without even thinking, said out loud, “Oh my gosh, another chicken”. I ran to the stairs to head down and blurt it out to my husband, when he stepped inside to say, “Hey, there’s another chicken down here”. We both laughed just like we did way back when our daughter was little.

I believe Father knew we needed some laughter to pull us out of the moods we were in. What better way to do it than to bring us back to a wonderful memory when our kids were young? What better way than to remind us of the gifts we have, one of his most precious gifts, that of a child?

Well, that little chicken last night did the trick. It totally changed our moods, and we had an enjoyable remainder of the evening. Yes, the Lord knows what we need before we do, and He always provides. Sometimes it is just the littlest and simplest of things that He places in our path that can make all the difference, like “another chicken”.

Have a good day friends, take a moment to look for those little things that bring joy and laughter to your day.

Psalm 126:2
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, “The Lord had done great things for them”.