This is a rather humorous story,
however, it started out as a dead serious matter with me concerning my chicken named
Boo Boo that I found floating in the little
ornamental pond behind the house. The following account comes from the article
entitled “Exactly How It Happened” at www.booboothechicken.org,
the official web site for Boo Boo the chicken.
“Around noon, I found one of our pet
chickens, Boo Boo, in the little pool in back of the
house, floating head down and wings spread out. I picked it up out of the water
and spoke to it, "In the name of Jesus, you will live and not die." I
thought, "The Heimlich," and proceeded to squeeze and shake it,
continuing to speak to it. It twitched, but I didn't know if it was the twitch
of life or the twitch of death. I took it around to the front porch where Becky
was sitting and I continued to do this and speak to it in the name of Jesus and
praying in the Spirit. I felt kind of silly doing this to a chicken, but losing
one of our pet chickens in this way was not part of the abundant life that
Jesus promised. So I did this a few minutes then left it wrapped in a towel,
just laying there. I told Becky as I left to go back to work, "Be speaking
the Word over it." I didn't know what else I could do. I thought about
using a vacuum cleaner to suck the water out, but I figured I would get a lot
more than water, so I didn't do that. As I drove away, I thought about
mouth-to-mouth, but I had to get back to work so I kept driving.
My sister happened along probably about 30 to 45 minutes
later. Becky told her what had happened, so she, a retired nurse, decided to
administer mouth to beak CPR. When she blew into it, as she put it, "That
dad-gum chicken's eyes popped open." She said she blew again and it's eyes popped open again. She did this for a few minutes,
then she had to leave. The chicken was still wrapped
up in the towel. Sis told Becky we needed to keep it warm.
A little later I came back home to get some materials for a
job I was doing, and found the chicken still alive. Becky told me what Sis had
done. I thought to myself, "Well, I thought about mouth-to-mouth when I
drove off. If she can do it, I can too." So I positioned myself outside so
my daughter, her friend, and my wife could not see what I was doing. I felt kinda silly doing this, but for fifteen minutes I did CPR
on that chicken, blowing and squeezing. Then I had to leave again. I laid it in
the house wrapped in the towel near a heater.
When I came in that evening, that chicken was still alive! I
dried it off with a hair dryer real good and laid it in a cardboard box with a
towel in it, and some feed and water, although, all it
could do was just lay there. We called this box ICU.
Next morning it was still alive. It's
feet had curled up and it just flopped around a little, but basically just lay
there. It was a pretty day, so I sat her in the box out on the front porch in
the sunshine. As I looked at her laying there, the
thought crossed my mind that we were just going to have a crippled chicken on
our hands, and that it would have been better to just let her be drowned. But I
just refused to entertain that thought, and I think I even spoke out that this
chicken would fully recover. I left and went to work.
Becky was doing her daily Bible reading out on the front
porch with Boo Boo laying in
the box beside her. As she was reading she happened to get to the part about
Lazarus being raised from the dead (reading silently to herself), and that
chicken suddenly let out a squawk and flopped her wings and jumped up on the
edge of the box and perched there. Becky excitedly called me on the cell phone
explaining what had happened. Sure enough, when I came in that evening, Boo Boo was very wobbly, falling and flopping around, but she
was definitely making a recovery. We nicknamed her "Lazarette."
At this writing, Boo Boo is
getting stronger every day. Bo Bo, a rooster of her
same age, is very interested in her, staying close to her cage, obviously
impressed with what he sees inside. I don't know if he knows that she has
become a world-famous celebrity, or if his attraction to her is simply nature
taking it's course. With her
world-wide notoriety we are now scheduled to appear with her on the Jay Leno
Show in LA on Friday, March 10 .”
My sister and Boo Boo
did appear on the Jay Leno show with Terry Bradshaw, a very funny segment, from
which we have had and continue to have a lot of positive response and a lot of
laughs. As I said in the beginning, when I spoke over that chicken in the name
of Jesus, I was irritated that death would try to claim one of our pets like
that, especially after just that morning I had especially been admiring Boo Boo, really appreciating the beautiful and unique chicken
that she was. So I was seriously intending to speak life into that chicken,
however, I had to get back to work, so it was not like I was stopping the whole
world in order to get this chicken raised up. I go into greater detail of what
was going through my mind during the whole ordeal in the article entitled “Why did I resuscitate that chicken?” on the Boo Boo web site.
The bottom line is this: We all know
death is an enemy. Jesus has conquered death, and he told us to raise the dead…..so
why not? There is power through faith in the name of Jesus. If I had just
accepted it as a dead chicken, that’s exactly what we would have had. But it
rose up from within me to rebuke death and command that chicken to live, and she did, and, she gained world-wide notoriety! I
never intended for that to happen! I just came home for lunch one day and found
my dead chicken floating in the pond, got a little mad at the situation, and
spoke to it in the name of Jesus! That name is good anywhere in the world, and it
will get the job done when nothing else can. All the praise goes to the name of
Jesus.
Jackie
Calhoun
Arkadelphia,
AR
870-403-2211