Words of The Lamb magazine

by Amannda Maphies

Have you ever felt abandoned, rejected, or simply ‘not good enough’? To add insult to injury, the most intense feelings of rejection come from those who are supposed to love us the most…and when they cannot, or choose not to, it is a scar many will carry for a lifetime. But let me tell you what I learned just yesterday….

My church was preparing for our weekly time of communion. We always have a short meditation beforehand. Yesterday’s meditation centered on a subject I had never heard of (please do not judge me if this is common knowledge; not for this city girl).

There is a type of lamb called a ‘bummer lamb.’ This means that the baby lamb was cruelly rejected by his mother at birth. It could be that she senses a birth defect; it could be that there were twins and she only imprints on one of the babies. There is not always a reason for this rejection, but once the mother has decided, there is no changing her mind. Without the aid of a human (farmer, shepherd, agricultural guru), the newborn lamb has absolutely no chance of survival.

However, when a human intervenes with an abandoned lamb, there is hope. The adoptive human will wrap the lamb in a warm blanket, bring him in the house, preferably warming him by the light of a fire, bottle-feed the baby, and hold it close to the warmth of a human chest, close enough for the innocent lamb to hear and feel a human heartbeat, essential for the development of the brokenhearted newborn, who desperately craves his mother’s closeness.

The thing that broke my heart about this scenario was when I learned that the lamb, once he makes the realization that he has been rejected, will physically hang his head so low it practically drags the ground, appearing as a broken neck. The outer physical heartbreak is minimal compared to the inner devastation the young lamb surely feels. After all, if one’s own mother does not want you, is there any hope to ever know genuine love in this often lonely world?

However, in many cases, the lamb is nursed to health, physically and spiritually, by a shepherd willing to do a little extra work to provide the warmth, nourishment, and love that the mother ewe could not. The lamb comes to know his rescuer. He bounds to the shepherd with more excitement and anticipation than any of the other sheep in the pasture. The sheep knows the distinct voice of the shepherd. It spent the first pivotal months of life being tenderly cared for by this loving man.

Ironically, these two pictures showed up in my social media feed a day after learning about this ‘bummer lamb’ phenomenon. Call it artificial intelligence. Call it coincidence. Or (as I prefer), call it the Holy Spirit, leading me to share this invaluable lesson that applies to all life.

If you are feeling hurt, abused, abandoned, rejected, or simply like you don’t ’fit in’, chances are very good that you were chosen, hand-picked, and divinely selected to stand out! You know, the Bible tells us that a good shepherd will leave 99 in search of the one that is missing. Jesus is that shepherd. He runs after the lost. He rescues the rejected. He wraps the broken, lonely, and defeated soul in a blanket of grace, allowing them to hear and feel the tender beat of his life-fulfilling heart while bottle-feeding them with the nourishment of spiritual milk.

A bummer lamb may seem to have received an unfortunate beginning in life. But when you consider the extra care and close lifelong relationship he develops with the shepherd as a result of those ‘unfortunate’ circumstances, it seems more likely that he won the spiritual lottery of immeasurable love, never-ending mercy, and infinite eternal provision.

The ‘bummer lamb’ rests fully in the arms of his Savior. For he knows his worth. His life was measured, treasured, and loved beyond definition. A heartbroken, rejected, unwanted baby is transformed into a chosen, valued, precious lamb of God. I feel the bummer lamb deserves a new name. How about the ‘beloved lamb’?