“Let’s go check to see if there are any new lambies,” I said to Julia. In a muddy corner outside the barn we found a mother and baby. But there were also two other suspicious mounds stuck in the mud that turned out to be muddy, wet lambs barely able to lift their heads. Although I didn’t expect them to survive, with my kindergartner’s help and hope, I began a futile rescue attempt.
Second grader Christine ran warm bath water as Julia and I put the lambs into the tub to raise their body temperature. The girls delighted in the slightest wiggles from their patients. I frowned and warned, “They’re going to die.” Christine and Julia were naively hopeful and needed me to believe; but I remembered their disappointment with an earlier failed attempt. Julia had asked, “The lamb didn’t do anything wrong. Why did it have to die?”
We bathed them over and over, held their heads above water, towel dried their fuzzy bodies, then, blow-dried them. I kept reminding the girls that they would probably die. The lambs were too weak to stand by their mother and nurse, and we didn’t have any powdered milk ewe-replacer to bottle-feed them. “Milk the mom!” Christine begged over and over.
Out in the lambing pen, I obeyed my eight-year-old’s suggestion and later returned to the house feeling rather proud of my accomplishment. The girls praised my efforts and giggled with glee as the lambs sucked down their nourishment. By that afternoon the warmed lambs had perked up and tried their wobbly legs.
When my husband came home from work, the girls bounded out of the family room, each holding a lamb, squealing, “SURPRISE!”
This time we rescued lambs, but in reality it is the Lamb of God who has rescued us. I can’t help but think we’ve been in that muddy pit and somebody washed us clean with the sacrifice of His blood. He has warmed us with love and hope, and set our unsteady feet on the ground. Oh how we need a Savior!
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. (Psalm 40:2)
About Ann Stewart
Ann just won the Christy Award for Best Debut Novel of 2017 with Stars in the Grass, originated AMG’s Preparing My Heart series, and writes “Ann’s Lovin’ Ewe” for The Country Register. When she's not writing, she's waving her arms directing musicals, teaching middle schoolers, or watching UVA Basketball, This is Us, or Madam Secretary. In her free time she hangs out with her husband, raising two lovely daughters and a whole flock of fuzzy sheep on Skye Moor Farm, in Virginia--where unscripted drama provides plenty of entertaining material.
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