I was awakened early from an already short night. Tom and I had been up almost 34 hours, and sound sleep at the moment was a necessity! Was I dreaming?

I listened again, and realized it was not the early morning Muslim prayer call I had been cautioned to expect, but was a rooster’s crowing!

It can’t be, I thought–we are in the middle of sand dunes and concrete barriers. I had seen little color of growing green when driving out of the city from the airport the night before.

But there it was again–the same crowing I had heard as a little girl growing up in the country. I smiled and sneaked quietly outside to listen again. Moonlight was reluctantly giving way to the return of yesterday’s bright sun. And then it was as if the Muslim prayer call answered the rooster’s early morning call.

Surroundings looked foreign to me (I was in a country of sand—where the tops of large residences rose from the concrete fortresses around them. No flowers, an occasional lone tree imprisoned within the wall and only the white sand and the already hot air compelling me to go back inside.

And yet, there was a rooster’s crow.

Over breakfast the couple we were visiting said, yes, there is a rooster near; there is also a goat in that yard! One can never know what is behind barriers, I suppose.

After spending three days in that Middle Eastern country and then renewing friendships in Vienna (where we left our hearts four years ago), we returned to a very fertile, green Tennessee.

In the first pre-sun morning at home, I was awakened by the early morning call of another rooster! What is this, I wondered? There are no roosters in this neighborhood! But yes, there it was again!
(A neighbor now had 3 roosters, I learned later.)

I can understand a rooster crowing on cool mornings in middle Tennessee, as they awaken to fresh, nutritious grass and rich soil—like a table spread before them for breakfast!

But why crow in a hot arid place?

Rooosters crow for several reasons. One, they are cleaning off their turf
—to let any other roosters around know what’s what and who’s boss of the barnyard–or sand field!! They will sing wildly at an intruding predator. When a hen cackles at laying an egg, a rooster will celebrate with its song! They crow all day, but it is the early morning peal we hear and can find offensive as it wakes us up from a sound sleep. A rooster’s internal clock allows it to anticipate the sunrise in order to begin preparation of another exciting day to search for food!

I like that last one. It reminds me that I, as a believer, should be like a rooster when it comes to how I begin my day. And it doesn’t matter if I am in a hot dessert atmosphere struggling with heat and sand (those irritating situations in life) or if I am currently in lush pastures relishing all good things!

Christians crow—all day, too . . . in one tune or another.