Words of
Encouragement & Hope
Submitted by Carolyn Hicklin
Audrey
I went out to the barn yesterday morning to feed the horses and pray, like I do every morning. As I made the horses’ food buckets, I noticed my little Audrey was missing. Audrey is my oldest and littlest chicken, and she has survived owls, possums, floods, a hurricane, a bobcat and my five-year-old daughter. After looking for a long while, I figured she had finally gone the way so many other chickens have gone on our farm and that made me very sad because I loved Audrey.
The world is burning and people are suffering and there are all kinds of apocalyptic things happening around the globe, but when I would go into my barn to feed my horses and see Audrey, she made my heart happy. Because Audrey knows nothing of the wickedness and brokenness of the world. She only knows the barn and the chicken yard and that she likes to eat food that falls from the horses’ mouths. And there is something about that that gives me peace. There is something about Audrey’s obliviousness to all the brokenness of the world and her simple joy of being a chicken in a barn. This gives me hope that there are still pure things, good things and innocent things left in this world.
A little while later, as I sat on the hay loft steps and tried to focus on praying about riots and evil and abuse and brain tumors and lost souls, I blurted out, “I really loved that chicken!” and I began to sob. Through tears and nose running, I told God that I was sad and my heart was hurting and that I know losing Audrey didn’t seem important, in light of all the other things happening in the world, but she really made me happy. In the midst of all the darkness and despair of this world, Audrey, the little barn chicken, was a random ray of sunshine.
A while later, after I finished my prayer time, I was walking out of the barn and it was like someone gently took my face in their hands and turned it to the left and drew my gaze downward to a dirty corner between the tractor and the door and there sat Audrey. And the Holy Spirit reminded me, “I am concerned about all the things in your heart, none are too small.”
In the days ahead, as the world seems like it is falling apart and there are so many big things to pray about, remember little Audrey. Remember that God is moved by our heartfelt cries to Him, that He is a God who responds to our cries, a God who cares about our cries. Even if those cries are about a seemingly insignificant barn chicken. It is not necessarily the significance of our cries, it is simply that we cry out to Him and He hears us.
(Ps 40:1,2) I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He lifted me up from the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock and made my footsteps firm.
(Ps 34:15) The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their cry.
(Luke 18:7,8) Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help? I tell you, He will promptly carry out justice on their behalf. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?
*This article can also be found on my Facebook ministry page: Talitha Koumj
