He said we’d learn a lot from this.

We’d just pulled in the driveway, chugged up the hill, turned the truck around and backed it up close to the barn door.

Now we stood facing each other on opposite sides of the truck bed, peering eagerly between its barrier slats at the occupants within: three bewildered-looking sheep, on the cusp between lambhood and adulthood.

I itched to open the back, loose them into barn and pasture beyond, and see what they’d do. But Husband lifted his hand, motioned me to stop. Then in solemn tone, he gave his certain prediction of what these sheep would bring to our lives beyond grass trimming and wool.

“You know,” he said, his eyes meeting mine direct over the barrier, “We’re going to learn a lot from these sheep.  There’s a lot about sheep in the Bible.”

He was right, in both cases. Through days to come, in happenings sometimes scary, sometimes hilarious, these sheep and a spinning wheel, then more sheep and a loom, then goats and dairying equipment, then dye pots and dyes, would bring to bleating life both Old and New Testament imagery of shepherds and flocks, spinning and weaving, goat hair and wool, living and dyeing.

A friend of ours declares, “Everyone’s life is a parable.” This sheep-and-(later)-goat venture soon made our life a whole collection of parables, teaching us enough to fill a book—or at least a slew of web pages.

So… hereafter follow… Parables from the Pasture.