AND THEN THERE WERE TWO…

So, I’ve lost another one of my girls — Red Girl, formerly known as Georgi Girl, has gone missing. The irony of it is that I had just republished a blog on September 7, 2022, about her narrow escape from a hawk in 2019. Free ranging chickens are sort of like cats, they have many lives, until they don’t.

I went to the barn Monday night to tuck in my critters and in the coop were my two Black Girls, but no Red Girl — no offense, we name them by color because we otherwise couldn’t tell them apart.

I waited a bit for her to show up, as they always do, with the hint of the night star. I chirped for her, no answer. I went looking around in all the chicken hiding places, not a sighting. Tony came out, we walked the woods and the fields and up on the ridge, all the while calling chick-chick… we heard not a peep, literally.

I returned to the barn to button up the Black Girls for the night. They were sitting in their coop staring out the door. As flock animals, they were looking for her, a part of their flock was missing. Now we believe there was a little bit of Wild Kingdom going on at the barn that day as the Black Girls were quite skittish and refuse to come out of the barn. Red Girl never returned. I’m a little bit sad although I knew we gave her a happy life. Not all chickens get watermelon, grapes and tomatoes as treats.

Here’s the thing that sticks with me most…she’s just gone. Here one second, gone the next. There’s absolutely no trace of her. Not a feather, not a peep. She vanished, she’s gone, in the twinkling of an eye, without a trace. At first I thought, wow, maybe that’s how the rapture works, then horror struck me that if it was, I might have been left behind! Although I’m talking about my chickens here, I don’t make that statement lightly. It is an excellent reminder of how quickly things may change. The Lord has warned us of this:

“So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” Matthew 24:42-44

I love the way William MacDonald puts it: “The Son of Man will come when least expected by the masses. Therefore, His people should be on the tiptoes of expectancy.”

Standing on our tiptoes – looking for Him, searching for Him, straining to see Jesus, finding Him in the Word until He returns to the world.

I will forever remember Red Girl for her narrow escape from death (the first time) and for how quickly she was vanished (the second time). It is such a good reminder that we must live as if the Lord were coming back every single day. We have no earthly idea when He’s coming back and the Bible says it is impossible to predict, and we just shouldn’t spend our time trying to figure it out. We have no earthly idea how long each of us will be on this earth before we quickly vanish. But, He has given us every idea of how we are to live until we do, it’s in His Word.

When the moment comes for us to vanish, will we be found to be people of the Word or people of the world? Will we be standing on our tiptoes or will we be caught flat-footed?