What Chickens Teach

In the last several months, I’ve been working on my church’s sustainable farm with chickens. In the beginning it was terrifying and frustrating. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I persisted, staying in what I thought I would never grow to enjoy. Nearly seven months later, and the lessons I’ve learned from these chickens is invaluable to me and has only come from staying through the tiny little thing I disliked doing in the beginning.

Here is what the chickens teach me every day I work with them:

Boundaries are Good

The chickens we keep have to be placed within a boundary line, especially the younger ones. In the beginning of the year, there were nights we’d spend rounding the little chicks up just to place them back within the boundary of their living space. Often, in the mornings, the chickens would find a way to break through the fencing to meet us at the red silo where all the food was stored. I’d often talk to them saying “don’t you know I’m bringing you your food? This might satisfy you now, but once the food is within that boundary we put up for you, you will not have any.” And without it even occurring to me until hours later, I realized I was learning that sometimes boundaries are used for good, and that God uses things like fencing to teach us a lesson about how He will provide if we would just stay a little while longer in His boundary and wait on Him to provide all we need.

You Don’t Belong in That! Neither Do I!

The amount of times I’ve been frustrated with a chicken because it jumps up into the very coop I’m trying to clean out next is entirely embarrassing to admit. This happened recently as I was shoveling out their waste inside the coops where they lay their eggs. One of the mother hens hopped up into the coop I was headed to next and I immediately said out loud “come on! I’m cleaning this out for you! Don’t you know you don’t belong in your own crap?!” I took the mother hen that didn’t listen and placed my hands on her little wings. I gently pulled her out of the coop as she cackled at me. I was able to scoop what was necessary out so that she could jump right back into the clean area. It occurred to me moments later that God does the same with us. He’s saying “hey! Don’t you know you don’t belong there?! Let me clean that out for you!” And I immediately realized I’m just like the chicken who wanted inside her dirty coop, and that in the same way that chicken can have a clean coop if she is patient and waits, I also can have the joy of a clean coop when I am patient and wait, too.

Insurmountable Joy

When I tell you chickens are terrifying, I mean it. If you take an empty bag of shavings and carry it at your side, they will fly away from it and their wings as a whole will create a sound like walking through a wind tunnel. Terrifying. When you let them out of their coops, the same sound occurs. But the way some of them tumble out is just so cute and you can’t help but look at them in wonder with your heart pounding in joy. I primarily take on the older chickens and they are the main part of the work I get done on the farm. They are less in number compared to the younger chickens, but I think it was sometime in the middle of winter where I realized watching them hop on out of their coop with the sun rising in the sky was a joy that didn’t come from me at all, and it was through the process of showing up for these mother hens that I realized joy can come from menial things we dislike doing every single day, too.

A Posture of Thanksgiving Changes Everything

I used to hate showing up for the chickens. It wasn’t until I talked with a mentor of mine that I realized my heart was in the wrong place. I lacked thanksgiving. Now, going to see these chickens is something I look forward to even when I still dislike doing it. This is not a work of my own doing, but a work of God doing something in my heart through the act of showing up with gratitude even when I didn’t want to. Often, it’s so easy to say “I don’t like this, so I won’t show up anymore,” but it is often in the showing up even when we don’t want to or when we are wondering what the point is that God slowly reveals the point to us over a long period of time. Thanksgiving for what we do have even when we don’t understand it changes minds from that of lack to that of abundance.

If you had told me in September that I would actually grow to enjoy being with the chickens, cleaning up after them, and picking their eggs, I would have laughed in your face. But now I see that picking their eggs up and cleaning up after them is an act of love and an act of joy that far surpasses my own understanding. Even when it’s hard to wake up sometimes, and even when they peck at my feet and finger tips, they are still a multitude of little wonders teaching me what it means to be grateful for the abundance found in now.