Thursday Reflections - A Sheep Story- Hearts

Hearts Reflection- A True Sheep Story

Today I have a sheep story to share with you all.  As most of you know by now I am a shepherdess. I have a flock of about one dozen sheep that are constantly teaching me about God.  So many times in the Bible people are compared to sheep.  It says in the Bible that we are the sheep of God's pasture.
     Last Wednesday was rough.  It is lambing time right now and life is not always pretty on the farm. When I went out to feed the flock, one of my sheep was in labor.  She had popped out a healthy bouncing baby boy lamb who would not leave her side.  She had more to come but was not ready for help.  A few hours later, nothing had changed so I knew I had to put on my sheep midwife hat and get busy.  I will spare you most of the unpleasant details.  I delivered the very large stillborn lamb who was in a breech position, and a day later the mom died.  The twin that lived was very resourceful and realized that another mom had just given birth to a little girl lamb about the same hour. (My ram Merlin truly is an amazing ram).  The lamb (whose name is Moses) tried to go over and get a free meal from the mom with the new baby.
     Now, sheep are not at all accepting of other sheep's babies and refused to let him nurse even though it looked like she had enough milk to feed an entire sheep army.  There is a method used that if you put Vick's Vapor Rub on the mom's nose and on the babies, the mom sheep is tricked into thinking that all the babies that smell like her, belong to her.  It did not work.  After two days Moses realized that he would get nowhere and stopped trying to nurse, so now it was my job to try to get him to eat.  I had a large syringe (without the needle) and filled it with sheep milk replacement.  It did not work so I offered him my measuring cup filled with the remainder of the milk and he drank it like a champ.  Five or six times a day now my routine is to fill Moses' belly.  He now drinks out of a bottle (which seems more sensible than a sheep drinking out of a measuring cup) and comes everytime I call his name.
     All that being said, this made me think.  Are people like sheep, wired to just take care of their own?
I think that maybe we are, but as Christians, the condition of our heart should be to take care of the orphaned and widowed.  The fact that in the Bible we are called to take care of the needy, makes me think that we do not do it naturally.   God places it in our hearts to love those outside of our circle of those that are close to us.  That kind of love can only come from God, and sheep obviously do not know that type of love.   I am praying that each and everyone of you reading this will know the kind of love that I am talking about.  Don't love like a sheep, but love like God, the one who created us to fill our hearts and to love those that we may not even know.
     On Sunday this quote was said in our sermon: "Our words (and actions) are an overflow of our hearts."  Here is to an overflowing heart that has room for whoever God puts in our path.