Mutton Bustin'

I recently took my two nieces to the Stock Show in Denver to watch some Mutton Bustin’. It’s hilarious. These helmet-clad kiddos wrap their scrawny little arms and legs around the sheep and grasp onto fists full of the woolliest wool you’ve ever seen. Bareback they rocket out of the shoots wobbling atop the spastic sheep as they await their inevitable launch onto the dirt floor of the arena. They lay splayed until nervous Moms and rodeo clowns race to the rescue. As the dirt is brushed off and the kids are tugged to their feet, the crowd laughs and cheers. My 5-year old niece sat transfixed. She would have signed up right then and there if she could have. 

I sat watching the sheep. Before the event commences, two sheep are escorted to the far end of the arena. The competing sheep (and rider) then barrels through the gate making a beeline straight for the target of its sheep friends. Sometimes the competing sheep is so over zealous to reach its sheep friends that it plows right into them. This process repeats until there are over a dozen sheep standing idly in a flock waiting for, well, shepherding.  With the help of a little herder dog, the sheep are corralled back across the arena and safely into their pens. 

Sheep are long fabled to be simple-minded creatures. They are seemingly incapable of acting independently from one another. Their greatest defense is the flock itself. Safety in numbers. I have been roaming through the wilderness, sheep like. I do as I’m told, follow the instructions I’ve been given and trot along within the safety of my own flock.  

My friends who are also TTC (trying to conceive) and I have reached a point of desperation, but mostly in a laughable que sera sera kind of way. One day in January I took mental inventory of my TTC efforts: I was gobbling up prenatals, receiving hormone alignment in acupuncture, abiding by dietary additions/restrictions, charting, carrying around an orange fertility stone from a Tibetan aura reader, consuming copious amounts of pineapple cores (it contains bromelain, an enzyme known to aid in embryo implantation), and...oh, yeah...having sex. In conception-enhancing positions. All that work! All for naught. 

I have been escorted some ways and corralled in others and have stood idly on my own. I have realized how much I need a Shepherd. A Shepherd loves his sheep because they are dependent upon Him for survival. They learn His voice and trust the gentle nudge of His staff. They are counted at night and led beside still waters in the day. Maybe these sheep are onto something. Maybe they aren’t so simple-minded after all. 

Don’t get me wrong: I will still borrow my friend’s fertility monitor and further investigate ordering a case of sea urchin water. (It improves your vascular system!) But today I trust my Shepherd. Whatever will be will be. The future is not mine to see.