"I Stopped Praying."

          You’d think a sheep would know that it was lost, right? After all you can picture the poor little lamb crying its little heart out.  We imagine it caught in a bramble bush, maybe in the middle of a fierce storm, in dire need of the shepherd. And he knows it.

     

     Well, that isn‘t how it worked for Moppet. No sirree. She didn’t think she was lost; she wasn’t lost, she was independent; what a great life! It was on a balmy summer afternoon when she started to stray. Well, you know how it goes: that patch of grass over yonder was just a bit greener than what the shepherd had lead them to. She was bored with that patch, and the other wasn’t so very far away so she decided to check it out. She kept glancing back over her shoulder to see if any of the others were watching, but no one seemed too concerned. Mmmm. Good stuff. 

          Well, one bite lead to another, and other, until she found --I mean she didn’t find herself--drifting further and further away. It didn’t take a day or two, no sirree. It took awhile. Maybe a month, maybe a year, who knows, but she soon discovered that that ‘other’ grass had a more exciting flavour. She was getting bored with the commonplace stuff.

          Well, sooner or later, she felt a need to call upon the shepherd. You probably guessed that would happen, right? The problem is, it wasn’t the  “I’m lost!” cry, “Please come and help me!” Nope, it wasn’t that cry, and the shepherd didn’t recognize it. She was hollering “I want more of that wonderful grass! There isn’t any more around here!” 
          Well, the shepherd knew that grass hadn’t been good for her in the first place and I think he was kind of relieved that it had run out. He called back to her to come in closer.

          “There’s plenty of fresh, juicy grass over here!”
          Moppet tossed her defiant, little head. Nope. Besides she had spied something else that was more appealing. This prickly cactus  even had flowers on it. Once she got past those thistles she would be drunk on this new pleasure!  At first those prickles kinda felt like her conscience and they bothered her, but not enough to get her to stop searching for more and more of those intoxicating pleasures.

          Well, life had been good, real good, so far, but then came a series of setbacks.  She thought it was maybe time to give the shepherd a holler. Maybe he’d come a-running at her beck and call.

          It didn’t quite work like that. He didn’t come running and magically wipe all her problems away. He came alright, but Moppet didn’t see him. And Moppet got resentful. Why should I follow a shepherd who doesn’t answer my call, anyways?

          Sure the shepherd helped her from time to time, but she was dissatisfied. He doesn’t help me enough, and there are so many times I call and he doesn’t come running. I think I’ll just stop praying, oops, I mean calling.

          And she did. Life didn’t get better. Well, maybe she thought it did, but really it didn’t. The shepherd kept calling her to come closer where there was safety, but she stubbornly refused to answer, and those calls became fainter.

          Hey, Moppet, stop turning a deaf ear to your shepherd’s voice. Maybe he won’t give you everything you want, but he will fill your needs!

  “Moppet! Mop-pet!”

          I won’t write The End ‘cause this isn’t the end. The shepherd keeps following every one of us, seeking to bring us back to the shelter of the fold.