Scripture: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).

            When I was a child, we lived on a farm, complete with cows, horses, pigs, and poultry. My mother particularly enjoyed raising chickens, although I feared the pecks of the mother hens who objected to my stealing their eggs. One of the most ferocious of these was called “Ole Crip.” This is how she earned the name:

She had just hatched a brood of baby chicks and was leading them across our dirt road when she was struck by a car and suffered a broken leg. Normally, my mother would have dispatched her to the stewpot, but this dauntless little hen continued caring for her chicks, dragging her useless leg behind her. She deserved another chance, and she became our favorite setting hen, mothering brood after brood of fuzzy yellow babies.

One spring, Mama was given a setting of turkey eggs and decided to give them to Ole Crip. Every egg hatched—big, gray, noisy little birds. As she had always done, the little white hen led her oversized babies around the farmyard to teach them to scratch and peck for food. They dutifully followed her, peeping in contentment. And they grew. And grew.

As night fell, they all headed for the henhouse, where Ole Crip spread her wings to cover her babies. As the turkeys grew bigger and bigger, they pushed her upward until her feet were several inches above the floor. There, they jostled and pushed for the warmth of her body. What a comical sight as she heroically tried to be a mother to babies who had far outgrown her!

As my own children reached their teens, I often thought of Ole Crip as I frantically tried to mother the lives God had given me. This was not what I expected when the doctor laid sweet little babies in my arms! But somehow, we made it through those years. God’s grace was sufficient.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your grace, which is sufficient for my needs today, tomorrow, and forever. Amen.