My Plan, and How God Directed My Steps

Back in December I got excited with starting a new flock of sheep. I invested in two bred ewes with plans for saving lambs from them. My parents also got several other sheep at the same time, and I was in charge of them. When the lambs were born I chose a speckled lamb and a black-faced lamb, named Blossom, to keep. But then one of my ewes, Rosemary, started limping. I treated the hoof and wrapped it, but it didn’t get better. One night I took a look at her hoof again and saw a piece of loose hoof. I peeled it off and it revealed a hidden infection that looked a lot worse than it did before. I wondered if it was hoof rot, which can be very contagious. I was thankful that Rosemary was locked up.

The next day, as I was walking down to the mail box, all the sheep came running over to me (looking for grain) and I noticed that Blossom was limping. Her mother, Juanita, was already limping, but it hadn’t spread to any of the other sheep and I didn’t think it was hoof rot. Now I started feeling concern and went and told Momma. She told me to smell Blossom’s foot to see if it smelled the same as Rosemary’s. I smelled it. Sure enough, it smelled the same way. I told Momma, tearfully, yes, it was. We researched it and found that Rosemary had hoof rot. Momma said hopefully that we could try to treat them with a zinc dip, but if they didn’t get better we would need to sell them all. We found that most of the sheep’s hooves smelled of rot. I started feeling really sad and thinking that all my plans were falling apart. Momma pointed out to me that this showed what was dear to me. She encouraged me to go ahead and take care of their hooves by dipping them in zinc. As I was dipping their feet and trying to take care of their problems, I had this peace come upon me. I was totally fine with selling them, because God was in control and He was trying to test me to see where my heart was.

That night, out of all nights, a man came and bought the two ewes that were having hoof problems, which was a big blessing! I didn’t get as much money as I had hoped to get before, but I was totally fine with that. The next two weeks we kept the sheep locked up, and now Blossom is fine. Our friends gave us some lamb replacer so I could bottle feed her after her mom was sold.

Now all the sheep are healthy and don’t have hoof problems. And even if they did, I would be content because I know God is in control. I had made a plan, but God directed my steps.

Isabella, 14