I’d like to tell a duck story to lift your heart.

I was driving along and saw a mother duck crossing the frontage road, her line of ducklings behind her. I stopped for the duck line and realized that as the mother reached the sidewalk she was the only one who could jump up the curb. Her ducklings were too small to make the leap so they stayed in the gutter, walking up and down the concrete wall in front of them. I got out and ran up, the mother duck backing away and acting very distressed. Another driver stopped and then ran up behind me.

We started scooping little ducklings up onto the sidewalk.

We had all but one duckling reunited with their mother when I noticed one little one running away from us down the gutter … right at an open storm drain. I sprinted to it and gathered it up just inches from the wide grating, then carried it toward the mother and let it down. The mother duck flapped her wings a couple times before moving away to the open field behind her, all her little ducklings trailing behind just as they should.

When I turned to get back in my car I saw a string of other drivers had stopped, since we’d blocked traffic to become duck-rescuers. No one was honking their horns in frustration. Not a single car tried to pull around us. Everyone waited for the ducklings to reach safety.

Everyone loves a good rescue story. I know I do, especially when I’m in it. Like this one:

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand. (Psalm 40:2.)

Jesus scooped me up too. Great story.