Day 20: Little Bo-Peep, and Other Spiritual Things

My daughter has been on a nursery rhyme kick recently.  We received a large book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes in the mail, and it's been fun to read through them with Justice.  I say 'read' because Joy and I are clueless on how to sing three quarters of the short rhymes.  We've got ones like "Row Row Row your Boat" pretty good, but we can't seem to pin down a few obscure ones like, "Bobby Shafto's Gone to Sea."  Today, Justice has clung to Little Bo-Peep.  She's pretty torn up about Bo-Peep losing her sheep.  This morning it was, "Where did the sheep go?"  This afternoon it was, "She lost her sheep."  My daughter is a feeler; one who cries because the big bad wolf just needs his mama.  So, you can imagine that she really wants Bo-Peep to have her sheep.  If you're unfamiliar with the rhyme, it simply goes:

Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep

And Doesn't know where to find them;

Leave them alone, and they'll come home,

Wagging their tails behind them.

We were reading this to Justice right before bed, to let her know the sheep were no longer lost, and my mind drifted to those people within our life that wander away from God.  I happen to believe that the story of Christ is True, and that we find ourselves most at home- uniquely human and fully our created self- when we are confidently at rest in God's love for us.  And, for those we know that do not have this confidence, do not want this confidence, or runaway from this confidence, we seek after them through the love and grace Christ.  

But this nursery rhyme kind of hit me in a different way.  This first stanza of the rhyme indicates that Bo-Peep stops shepherding.  She just leaves them alone.  It's almost as if she has a quiet trust that the weeks, months, and years of shepherding her flock has instilled in them the knowledge of home.  So she confidently leaves them, and (I suspect) eagerly awaits their return in hopefulness.  At which point, they do, indeed, return.

I think there are some people within our lives who make it abundantly clear that being 'lost' is exactly where they want to be.  And we've tried prodding, encouraging, inviting, judging, coercing, or shepherd crooking (is that a thing?) them into a life of resting in God's presence to no avail.  At this point, as the years pass on, perhaps Bo-Peep can teach us to quietly, patiently wait for the call of God in their life to echo for home.  I like to think that Bo-Peep doesn't just leave her sheep, but actively prays for their return.  So, we become confident that just as God's grace met us for the first time, perhaps the same grace has gone before us, still working, in the people's lives we hold so dear.  I think this looks like placing our trust and faith in the one who does the saving; you know, the shepherd who refuses to keep any of us lost.