Friday, February 21, 2014

How a Hen Came to Symbolize the Faithfulness of God

After another 2 1/2 hours of painting, I finished the hen I had been working on at the local pottery place. I mentioned in my last blog that I chose the piece because it had special meaning to me. I wanted to take this opportunity to share why through a short but powerful story.


Speckles
A story of God's Faithfulness

My mom comes from humble beginnings, having grown up in Mississippi with her dad, mom and three siblings. Saying they did not have a lot of money is an understatement. In fact, money was so tight that for a period of 4 or 5 years (until she was in 2nd grade), her family lived in a school bus.

One day, my mom and her sister walked outside the school bus to a special surprise, a chicken in the yard. They told their mom who thought they must have been wrong. But they weren't. It was in fact a chicken.

That chicken, Speckles, became a bit of a family friend. She would dance to music with my mom and aunt and would even sit on my nana's shoulders. As much as she was a friend, she played a more significant role as an incredible blessing.

For the entire time that Speckles stayed around, she laid enough eggs to feed my mom's family every day. For a family without much money or means to get food, the arrival of a hen who provided eggs every day was a welcome sight and a huge miracle.

One day, after months and months of providing friendship and food for my mom and her family, Speckles was nowhere to be found. She left as quietly as she had come.

A symbol of God's faithfulness

My mom has had a porcelain hen sitting in her house for more than half my life. In our family it has come to symbolize God's faithfulness. We grew up believing in and experiences God's faithfulness.

Polly and I have adopted it as a symbol of the same for our little (growing) family too. The same God Who provided eggs for a poor Mississippi family in the 1960s through Speckles the hen will continue to provide the needs of our family, whether in Costa Rica or wherever we may be.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:25-26 ESV)

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