My Child Has Feathers

So, I have come to love a chicken.
 

His name is Chip, otherwise known as Chicky.
 
Chicky was about to be hard-boiled with other chicken embryos when Eddie, my team leader, heard him chirping and saved him. An hour later Chicky hatched before an audience of local Cambodian children and a handful of Americans.
 

As his feathers started to dry and fluff up, Chicky became the most adorable thing in our village. The fluffy yellow cotton ball chirped around our feet and chased bugs across the floor. Recently he has started to run up the hill to our house with his tiny wings flared, determined to be the first chicken to fly.
 
We scrambled to figure out how to take care of a baby chicken. We fed him rice and crackers and let him drink out of a lid from a water bottle. We cuddled with him in a quick-dry towel, and placed him in one of our bike baskets to keep him safe.
 
Chicky has become more than a chicken. By loving someone or something, meaning and identity are given.
 

It makes me sad when others do not love my little chicken. Jesus said that “he who loves me, loves the Father.” In loving what others love, you are loving them. In dishonoring what others love, you are dishonoring them.
 
Chicky will eventually reach the end that all Cambodian chickens experience, but for now he helps show what love looks like. Sometimes Jesus gives us examples through simple parables, and other times he lets us live out the metaphor.