Gods saves a chicken!

Today started off bad.

Really bad.

Well, I take that back ~ I woke up so it couldn't be THAT bad. But let's just say... it hasn't been one of my best mornings.

It started with a "sad" day yesterday. You know, one of those days where you feel sad all day. It probably had something to do with the argument that Wes and I had the night before over the house. We both had different ideas on how to fix something and we both felt unheard. We argued about money and finishing the house. I know you don't want to hear all the gory details so long story short... he was wrong.

Just kidding, I was wrong and had to apologize. Sometimes, I get impatient and just want the house done and I worry A LOT about where the money will come from. So I guess I was still feeling bad about the argument and just felt sad all day.

So, I woke up this morning with a new attitude and decided to go to the gym before we started school. I gathered all my gym stuff (i-pod, towel, cell phone, water bottle) and walked out the door only to realize that I had left my keys inside and I was now locked out of the house. GREEEEEEEAT!

WHY GOD? I just wanted to go to the gym. Why can't things just be easy?

The kids were all asleep so I had to try and wake them up.

I threw sticks at the upstairs windows.

I screamed.

I pounded on the house.

I gathered and threw another 50 sticks. I was getting a great workout!

I sent out a distress call to Wes at school.

30 minutes later...NOBODY heard me.

I cried... really hard. All the emotions from the past 2 days came out and I just sat in a chair outside and cried. I am talking shoulder-shaking-ugly crying.

Wes called and gave me a little pep talk. I felt better and decided I had better try climbing up the scaffolding in order to get closer to the kids window so they could hear me.

As I climbed up the scaffolding, I had a discussion with God about why he thinks I can handle all these little "problems" that seem to occur at our house. He didn't answer.

I finally get to the top of the 2 story scaffolding and start throwing sticks and yelling. Then I hear this noise coming from the silver air conditioning tubing that we are currently covering on the back of our house. (If you don't know about this, I blogged about it a week or 2 ago.)

I kept thinking, "Michelle, if a rabid squirrel jumps out at you don't fall off the scaffolding!" I poked at the tubing with a stick and it moved again. Then I heard bawk, baawk.

It was a chicken. Phew... at least it's a domestic animal... sort of.

Then my thought process went like this... IS THERE A CHICKEN IN THE A/C TUBING? No, is that even possible? The tubing is connected to the main a/c unit and that goes into the house. Can the chicken get into our house through the air vents? WHAT??????

I call Wes and he ASSURES me that it is impossible. That makes me think that yes, it is entirely possible.

I finally wake up the kids and get inside. I go upstairs and look out of the bathroom window and there is a huge hole in the tubing where the chicken has fallen through. GREEEEEEAT!

How do these things happen to me? I couldn't dream them up if I tried?

I can hear the chicken but the tubing is a few feet under the window and we can barely reach it. We (me and all 5 of the kids) are now standing together in the bathtub calling "cheep, cheep" and shaking a cup of chicken feed. Wes is on the phone telling me not to let the chicken go past the hole and climb further into the tubing and into the house.... the pressure!

I finally get enough courage to put my hand into the hole and pull back the insulation. Guess what? She laid an egg in there. GREEEEAT! Wes then proceeds to tell me to not let the egg fall down the tubes and bust because it will smell up the house when the a/c turns on. Ahhhh, the pressure is mounting!

It is about this time that I start thinking that a full-time job would be nice right about now. It would be a whole lot easier then this mom-teacher-chicken wrangler-gig that I have going on right now.

Finally, the chicken comes to the hole and peeks out. Madison pours a little food into the hole and along the top of the tube and she finally lures her out of the hole. YEAH!

I scream, "Madison, push her off the tubing before she climbs back into the hole!" Madison refuses, "NO Mom! She will plummet to her death!"

"I don't care~ she's lucky I don't eat her tonight!" I grabbed the broom, pushed Madison out of the way and smacked the chicken off the tubing. For the record... my blood pressure was slightly elevated.

Before you report me... she flapped her wings and landed safely 2 stories below.

2 hours had gone by, I was mentally exhausted. Wes calls to say he is on his way home to fix the hole. Good thing, I don't think my nerves can take a repeat episode of this.

After we repaired the hole (and stopped laughing), we could only thank God that I was locked out this morning. Only He could have known that I needed to climb the scaffolding today in order to discover the chicken in the a/c tube.

Only He knew that chicken needed rescuing.

Only He knew the smell of a dead chicken in our a/c vents for the next few months would have pushed me over the edge... right into a straight jacket!

God is amazing. Sometimes, he uses little problems in order to save us from bigger problems.

God really does care about the little things... and the birds of the air.

I will leave you with the lesson God taught me today:

Matthew 6: 25-27

²⁵"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

²⁶"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

²⁷"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?