A reflection on tending sheep

By Kendall Henson, two-year intern

This is an excerpt from Kendall's two-year intern speech

As the resident “sheep girl” I would be remiss to not mention my funny livestock friends as a very appropriate metaphor to accompany my new understanding of our Great Shepherd. For the past seven months I have tended to our small sheep flock. This experience has been delightful and instructive, as well as heartbreaking and overwhelming. A lot of this year has been heartbreaking and overwhelming. My own hurts collided with the brokenness of the students, the other interns, my family, and I spent the year in a relatively consistent flow of grief. Thank the Lord, this place is well-adjusted to grief, and has healing arms to extend. Sometimes the healing arms are mine, which is an honor and a wonder I still struggle to understand. 

There was a season of this year during which I was certain the Lord did not hear me, did not see my grief or concern Himself with its causes or its comfort. I’m sure many of you have been in a similar place. I know I have sat on the other side of this idea, with students who could not believe me when I insisted they were within the Lord’s sight. Well, this time it was me. Unsurprisingly, the sheep were the ones who corrected my suspicions, through a rather melodramatic performance.

One morning, I and a small team worked on moving the sheep pasture to a new location. Every pasture move is a different puzzle to solve, with factors such as the distance between the new and old locations, toxic plants to avoid, accessibility, and ease of installing the fencing. On this particular occasion, our chosen strategy for moving the sheep themselves resulted in a mass escape. All of the sheep except for one raced across our soccer field to freedom along the entrance road. The remaining sheep, named Clyde, stumbled after them while struggling to extricate himself from the mess of netting he had become entangled in. With help, I managed to free Clyde’s neck and limbs and return him to his cage, hoping his siblings would be drawn back to the pasture to be near to him. I then turned my attention to the tangled net, hurrying to release the knots so I could set up the fencing and establish a pasture to welcome the sheep back into.

Throughout the entire duration of my work on the knotted fencing, all the way up to the point that we had the pasture established and were ready to release the captive sheep, he made his displeasure well known. As I worked, Clyde brayed and called out his protests against the injustice of his day. Overwhelmed with the emotion of the past several weeks, I cried alongside him. He just didn’t understand that my every choice was for his good. “I hear you,” I called out to him. “I’m sorry. I hear you, and I’m coming soon.” I paused, and the words reverberated in my head. “I’m sorry. I hear you, and I’m coming soon.”

There is a ministry of tears at the ranch. An outpouring of grief for every injustice that has formerly gone unanswered. Through a year of mourning for the students, for myself, for any number of reasons, I saw the Lord more clearly. I learned to feel His faithful presence, even when He offered no solution, but allowed the grief to pour forth, to cleanse, and to balance the scales between wrongs committed, and wrongs acknowledged and healed. 

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. I am honored to be at home in a place that welcomes His salvation, and allows the brokenness to be seen and be soothed.