the here and now.

The light changing in the bubbles bring tears to my eyes.  The colors refract differently inside of it and at once I get to see my favorite color palette of opalescent iridescent pinks and teals. I am so thankful to clean this milk machine bucket…to scrub it like new. Years of milking by hand have served it’s purpose.  I have raised up this herd and there are so many to milk.

Doing any of this makes “no sense”…. but at the same time it makes perfect sense.

Time and time again He stands next to me and without judgement says,”You don’t have to do any of this… this is all for you… but if you don’t want this… you don’t have to continue.”  I have lifted my head off of rain soaked sheep caked in mud and worse and set my jaw, “No.  I am still in… I still want this.” As I tried again to milk a sheep whose triplets have chewed her up and is forced to wean. With the back of my hand I smear my bangs out of my eyes and lie to myself that it was just rainwater that wiped over my forehead.  I try again… “step 1 wipe everything off…again…..”

“You don’t have to do this,” He says standing next to me as I find a rejected bleeding and blue three pound lamb off in the pasture.  “I am still in… just help me.”  Within minutes He sends  the biggest sheep dairys in the country  with encouragement and wisdom.  Now, lil’davey run freely through Sunday Dinner from person to person hoping for a good scratch.

And I don’t need these sheep… I don’t need this milk… but at the same time… We do need it…. I need this.

I need the being a shepherd and walking with a Shepherd.

I need the walking on water as all the weaned lambs scream and the rain pours and the shit is knee deep and the milking must be done or something worse could happen but not one animal will cooperate and milking took hours and my husband is in the hospital …. and He takes my hand and tells me to “see none of it… but see All of It.” I step out and  He is right… we don’t need to see through our minds… See through Him.

For my birthday I get a milking machine… similar to the one my grandfather used on his farm years ago.

I get to do this.  It’s not your dream… but it is mine… and I get to do this.

I get to care for these animals.

I get to wipe off these healthy lambs as they make their way here.

I get to choose to sell them to a solar panel farm to walk out their days happily mowing.

I get to learn how my grandfather and his father milked and still made church on a Sunday morning.

I get to lug this huge milk machine….HUGE I tell ya!

I get to watch as this is my children’s normal as they run around playing catch with lil’davey.

I get to do it all with Him.  I get to hear Him speak about things that might not matter one fleck to anyone but me… but He speaks because that is what we do.  He likes Shepherding I know this…. I get to know this first hand.

I get to see how a Shepherd can see none of it… but see All of It.