“WHAT a nuisance that parrot is,” exclaimed Mr. Proctor. “As often as I turn him out he comes back again, screeching and flapping his wings. He is a nuance!”
It was at a mission station in Africa and the missionaries’ patience had been sorely tried for some time by the noise of this bright-hued bird who insisted on sharing their home. Just now Mr. Proctor was leaning on the handle of a broom with which he had chased the parrot from place to place. The intruder had taken up his quarters in an inner room very near the cot where their little baby daughter was sleeping.
“Put up your broom and come to dinner; he doesn’t mean to budge for you,” said a fellow missionary, while Mrs. Proctor cast anxious glances at the distant cot, and expressed her fear that the creature with the terrible beak and sharp claws “might hurt the baby.”
A few days later the attention of all within earshot was attracted by unusually loud screeches.
“That’s a new specimen of his music,” said Mr. Proctor. “There’s something up, depend upon it.”
Well might the parent be alarmed, for there in the little inner room, just over the baby’s cot, hung a huge cobra snake. Its black shiny body was twisted around a beam, and its head was approaching nearer and nearer to the fair, dimpled face of little baby Ann, the darling of the mission station. The shrieks of the parrot aroused her—she flung out a chubby arm—the cobra slipped lower and lower.
Poor Mrs. Proctor was too terrified to move or speak, and could only send up a silent prayer, “Oh God, please save my baby.”
“A gun,” cried Mr. Proctor in an agony of fear.
The next moment the report of a gun rang out, and the huge snake lay dead at their feet. Mrs. Proctor clasped her darling baby, who was quite unhurt, although frightened at the noise of the gun.
“Thank God for that parrot,” said someone. Mr. Proctor could only ask himself what might have been the consequences if his plan of turning out the bird had been successful!
Just as that noisy, determined parrot, who tried the missionary so much, proved to be a blessing in that far-off mission house, so some of the trials and difficulties in our daily lives, are God’s messengers to teach us many precious lessons. We may not know or understand the why or wherefore of some things that are allowed to come into our lives, but those who are God’s children, who have trusted in Christ for their salvation, can rest in His love, knowing that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:2828And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28).
ML-08/02/1964