For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to understand
what the lord taught Adam. In an attempt to do this I felt guided to start a
garden. I put this off for many years after many promptings because we did not
own a home. I gave myself an excuse for why I couldn’t follow that prompting.
The year we did, the season was already late, but I put great effort into
starting a garden that year. It was small compared to my garden today but it
was huge compared to my experience.
Growing plants eventually appears to have been just the
beginning, over a few short years Bees, worms, and chickens have been added.
Each with a feeling from the spirit that I needed to do them and some foot dragging
on my part of why that moment in time was not ideal, but in the end I still did
as the spirit had directed, often to my own horror of the financial cost involved.
We have a rooster this year and we are approaching the
season where we often loss part of our flock to critters, and that being true
we normally get chicks to replace the flock. Since we have a Rooster I know
that we can do it ourselves since our eggs are fertilized. Recently a family
moved into the ward and there little girls were so charming and we gave them
eggs, for which we had an overabundance at the time, and the oldest of the
little girls would not let her family eat them because she wanted them to
hatch.
After some coaching, she finally relented and allowed her
family to enjoy the gift of fresh, now less so, eggs they had received. Throughout
these interactions the Spirit kept bringing chicks into my mind, so I set about
researching incubators. With all of life going on, our finances have been tight,
and I just couldn’t justify the expense. I felt at peace with that, but I still
felt the spirit prompting the word chicks.
During this time we have had one hen that will not lay eggs
with the other girls. She constantly breaks out of there enclosure, normally
flying over the fence, to lay here eggs somewhere else. We have found several
of her nest and once we have pilfered them several times she changes location. Well
just as this all began she went missing. We had no idea where she was, but
about once a week she would make an appearance and then she would be gone again.
We were not worried because we had more than enough birds and we have dealt
with our share of feral slaughters, and we have come to expect them.
Then one morning the prompting for chicks grew to a climax I
couldn’t take anymore. I had to do something. One of our Hens had been showing
sure signs of being broody, so I took her and a selection of fresh eggs and put
them in out spare coop. She seemed more than happy to keep the eggs company. I
felt pretty good about my following the spirit at this point.
That same day our lost hen had come home, but unlike the
story of the prodigal son, she was the one bearing gifts. Five beautiful little
chicks.
I felt very humbled and the spirit filled my whole self. The
Lord was not asking me do anything. The whole time, it was telling me of the
blessings God was preparing for me. As I looked back, those first promptings
were right around the time our lost hen would have added the last egg to her
clutch and set to the work hatching her eggs. Trust GOD. It is his work not
mine.
God has given our family many opportunities to serve
recently, even though our resources have been few, but sufficient. I haven’t
felt the angst of worry about the future, which my wife can tell you I often
do. I have also been focusing on understand how God sees and reasons in one
eternal round, with the past, present,
and future all as one. The out pourings of the spirit have been glorious to
behold and I can truly say that if I can receive the spirit daily in my life,
which recently I have, I’m sure our Leaders can have that and more.
