When I was a little girl, my Dad used to tell bedtime stories to my sister and I. Lately, I have been thinking about the stories he used to tell. We didn't care how many times we heard the stories. Each time, Daddy would take us through the highs and lows in great detail. Our eyes would be fixed on him. His gentle voice soothing us. He would stop and answer our inquisitive questions and would elaborate further on the story so that our questions would be answered. We knew the ending of coarse, but the emotion for us was always the same.
My memories are a little dull now, but they still remain.
One story he would tell, was about a young shepherd boy . His family were very poor. One day a man came to visit the family and he told them about the Good Shepherd... Jesus. We are like sheep that have gone astray, but Jesus came to rescue us. The young boy listened carefully, as the man told them about the 23rd Psalm which says 'The Lord is my Shepherd'. As the man said each word, he matched it to a finger on one hand, starting with the thumb. When he came to to the the word 'my' he held his ring finger tightly with his other hand. The boy thought about the Good Shepherd more and more.
It was getting on to the colder months and the boy had to take the sheep down the mountain where the grass was better for grazing sheep. He said goodbye to his parents and began his journey down the mountain. His mother had packed him some food of bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth.
He knew each of the sheep by name and kept count making sure all were safe in his care. As he walked, he noticed the skies becoming grey and the weather looked unpredictable. He decided to take a break for lunch; he had been walking for a long time now. He found a nice flat rock to sit on. He took a bite of the bread and cut a piece of the cheese with the pen knife that had belonged to his grandfather. It had been passed onto his Father who had passed it onto him.
After he had eaten, he got up to continue on his way. He was anxious not to waste too much time. The place that he needed to graze the sheep was still an hour away. He counted his sheep and to his despair, he noticed one was missing. He stopped to listen and he could hear the faint cry of a sheep in the distance..to be continued