My Rooster List

            I have a rooster list. I flew to a special niece’s house to stay for a week. As I took my suitcase into the bedroom she explained. “My neighbor has roosters.” I looked at her and knew there was more. “They have lots of roosters”

            That night or should I say early morning at 4:15 I understood her words. I would wake up with the chickens. I pack a pair of earplugs when I travel and that helped.

            They say you can get used to anything. My niece lived at the end of a dead end street that was still part of the county. When I took a walk down her street past expensive, lovely homes and then back to her home I stepped around beautiful, proud roosters. I was the intruder. They were also strutting through all the neighbors' yards. Was the whole neighborhood so accustomed to the roosters that they accepted dozens of them as normal?

            The next morning when I woke up with the early birds I decided to spend time with the Lord. I wondered what I was accepting in my life that God might think was strange. So I dared to pray about it. Slowly, I realized there were things in my home and life that I accepted because I gradually became familiar with them. At the beginning I wasn’t comfortable with them. 
             I wrote down a list. I called it my Rooster List and took it home to work on changes. No, I won’t share my list with you. You’ll have to ask the Holy Spirit for your own list.

Scripture: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3 (NIV)