Publisher: A Rednecked Chicken Tale

Her name is Brenda.

She’s a chicken.

I just met her yesterday in my daughter’s yard. She started following me as we headed out to the barn to meet Preacher, the latest addition to the menagerie (but that’s for another time).

Brenda has attitude. You can tell it by the way she struts around like she owns the place…but it didn’t start that way. Brenda was different. She was the smallest of the brood, and she didn’t look like everyone else. Brenda is a Black Star chicken. This breed is normally black with red throats, but not Brenda. She was just solid—no red throat, and her comb was a little crooked. She didn’t look like the rest of the flock. In fact, she was kind of ugly…so they attacked her—twice. The first time, they pecked all her tail feathers off. After she healed and was reintegrated, the flock still seemed to hate her and pecked her tail feathers off again and then her neck feathers. Sadly, they almost pecked her to death (it’s called pecking order for a reason).

At this point, my son-in-law Ryan decided she would just have to be a pet chicken, and he named her Brenda. He put her in a separate kennel and nursed her back to health. As he took care of her every day, she started to get to do things that were special. She was allowed to run around the barn while the others were in the coop. She followed Ryan around the yard getting her exercise. She began to trust him more and more, and he would pick her up and hold her. She knew he was her protector. Now, she flies up to his shoulder when he goes to the barn.

Brenda has been reintegrated with the flock, but she has an attitude—the attitude of confidence…of one who knows her master loves her. He could have let her die, but he didn’t. He cared for her, and she knows that. There are so many lessons in Brenda’s story: lessons of caring for the least of us (those who are different, those who are too small to care for themselves); but especially the lesson of following our Master, the one who loved us so much that He actually died for us. Do we trust enough to follow Him?

Oh, and one other thing. Brenda’s neck is even turning a little red.

Until next time,

  ~ Karen