Toiling under the moonlight, she labors to deliver her lambs to the dewy ground beneath. She cleans them as morning’s rays bathe them in their first sunrise. As the rest of the flock stirs to begin their move to the lower pasture, she quietly stands over babes, watching and nuzzling while their hooves learn to bear weight.
She waits. She noses them toward her flank. She’s still, instinctively knowing her body which has sustained them for five months within, must continue to sustain them for another five months without.
The second is a bit smaller than the first, with limbs resistant to gathering properly underneath her, hindering her ascent to unmitigated ambulation. The mama’s low murmur encourages and commands the little one to keep trying, to get up, to feed, to follow her. But until her dear one is able, she will watch, she will wait, she will nourish. Her patience is confidence that the little one will yet gain her needed vigor, if time and sustenance and providence are given time to finish their work.
So she waits. The mama watches the rest of the flock move on, her peers trotting down the hill to greener pasture. They turn to call to her, “Don’t you know? This is what we do! We are sheep, we leave the hill and graze the green grass while the sun shines. You came with us yesterday, why do you tarry now? Come along, this is what we do!”
Yet, the mama is still. The grass will keep, as will her former vocation. Her lambs will not without her constant care. And the beautiful little ewe lamb, still working to find strength through her trembling, especially needs her attention at present. The mama will watch her fellows advance, observing their routines from afar, unknowing if or when they, too, will cycle through her current estate. But she knows that this is what the Creator has ordained for her this day, and so she stays behind.
She risks the rest of the flock misunderstanding her, but there’s no gap in the mama’s understanding of her purpose this day. It is to protect, to watch, to encourage, to deny herself in the giving of her substance for the lives of her lambs, to keep them close, to submit to the providential will of her Creator, to stay, to wait.
And so she does. This too will pass and before long, she’ll return to the pasture. But not before both of her lambs are strong and by her side, not until her little one is whole.
Absolutely beautiful. Thank you <3
💚 to you and your little lambs