I received this text from my friend Linda two days ago. Had I not been 500 miles away, I’d have jumped in the car and helped out. She and her husband Johnnie raise a small herd of sheep each year, and they had just experienced a calamity birth – a mother with 2 lambs gave birth to one but died in breach with the second, leaving an orphan lamb with no feeding source. “This has happened before, and we’ve tried to bottle feed them, but haven’t been able to keep them alive. There are locals equipped to do this, and I’m searching for one now.”
Later that morning, I received another text:
“I spent $28 dollars for feed milk and a nipple and just gave her 4 oz… have to do that every 6 hours.” Before I could call for an explanation of this turn of events, along it came:
”I can't let her starve. It’s not in me, I guess. I am a softie.”A softie indeed. This is an illustration of exactly why Linda and Johnnie raise sheep, have a dog of their own and two “grand-dogs” who spend nearly every waking moment at their beautiful ranch home. They are, in the truest and most honorable sense of the word, softies. Love and compassion have been the guiding principles of their lives, as evidenced by the values they have given as living legacies to their two daughters and four grandchildren. And now, as anything-but-empty-nesters in their retirement years, they maintain their five-acre homestead as a haven for kids, grandkids, family, friends, and other living creatures like this orphan lamb.
Today’s text tells me her name is Lucy:
“Good morning. Just fed Lucy the lamb and she followed us up to the fence. Max won't leave the fence. She really is doing well.”
No surprise… love has come full circle through Max and Princess, the Grand-Dogs:
“We just looked out and Lucy came through the fence in the pool area. Max won't leave her - it is so cute. She loves Max. Princess keeps barking at her.”Finally, as Lucy’s foray into the pool area becomes too much of a threat to her safety, back to her fenced area she goes, with Max as her protector, Princess as her playmate, and Linda and Johnnie as her guardians.
“We had to take her back down to the pasture so she doesn't fall in the pool. Max won’t leave her.”Without claim to valor or publicity, Linda and Johnnie did what they knew was the right thing as they saved this baby from her unfortunate circumstance. They fulfilled Lucy’s physical needs by feeding and keeping her safe, and by extension they fulfilled Lucy’s emotional needs through their loving treatment of Max and Princess, who turned the love they have learned into the playful, protective love of siblings in a safe, nurturing environment.
Lucy may just be a once-orphaned lamb now bonded with a new surrogate family. Or, I might suggest, Lucy might be an object lesson for us all. When irreversible adversity strikes, love responds with unconditional resolve. It doesn’t flail away or strike back. Love works its magic... not with a wand or a potion, but with a nudge. It is received; it heals the wound; it replaces what has been lost; it mends the broken heart. Because it’s Love.
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