Wyatt to the Rescue–A Mother’s Pride, by Judy Robertson

Has your child swelled your heart with pride by being compassionate in some way or rescued one of God’s creatures from certain death? Sometimes our children surprise us with their compassion or some character trait we didn’t know they had. This week-end we celebrate Mother’s Day. As mothers, nothing blesses us more than seeing our child exhibit a “first responder” trait that makes our heart swell with pride.

Wyatt and the baby duck

“Mom, mom, come quick, it’s an emergency!” Eight-year old Wyatt yelled. He ran into his family’s apartment near a lake. He grabbed his mother’s hand and ran with her to the canal that runs alongside the lake. Earlier in the day Wyatt and his mom heard the quack, quack, of a female duck with her five little ducklings close to their apartment.

Wyatt had gone down to the canal to do a third grade science project for school when he saw a little duckling’s head peeking out from underneath a jagged piece of concrete. On his knees, Wyatt reached down the embankment of the dirt canal and petted the baby duck’s head and wondered why he didn’t swim away. Wyatt suddenly realized the duckling was stuck underneath the concrete. Wyatt gently stroked the baby duck’s head and maneuvered the concrete away from the duckling and slowly lifted him out of the water.

Wyatt’s mom, Syd, was on the embankment watching. “Mom, we’ve got to find his mother—he’ll die if he stays all alone.” So Wyatt and his mom walked to the nearby lake trying to find the baby duck’s mother and his four siblings they saw earlier. All of a sudden Wyatt yelled excitedly, “Mom there she is!” the mother duck waddled along with four ducklings behind her in a straight line. “It has to be his mother, mom.”

Wyatt’s mom cradled the duckling close to her chest in both hands and then slowly let him down on the ground near where the mother duck guided her brood away from the two people coming toward her. As soon as the duckling stood on the ground he ran to his mother. The mother duck puffed out her wings and drew her lost baby right under her wings with his four siblings.

It was almost sundown and mother duck and her five little ones snuggled safely under her wings on the warm dirt. This day, Wyatt was a hero.

“In Wyatt’s prayers before bed last night, he cried, and thanked God for giving him the opportunity to save the duckling.” Mom, Syd, reported. “What a day!” No greater Mother’s Day gift.

Would you care to share your rescue story for Mother’s Day? And let us all rejoice that our children stepped out of themselves and became a Rescuer.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! ALL YOU MOTHERS OUT THERE.