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Good evening, little lambs. Tonight's story is called Peace Be with You, inspired by the Gospel of Luke ten twelve. Peace be with you. That is the very first thing you say before you ask what's wrong, before you try to fix anything at all. Tonight in the Gospel of Luke, chapter ten verses one through twelve, Jesus sends his friends out two by two and tells them exactly what to say the moment they arrive somewhere, before anything else. Peace be to this house. And so tonight we are back on Shepherd's Hill, where two small lambs are about to find out exactly why that order matters. The evening had turned the color of warm tea, and the lambs were gathered close around Jesus' knees for the last stretch of daylight. Old Wooly stood slowly, his silver wool catching the low sun, and cleared his throat the way he always did before saying something that mattered. Nettle has gone back to the far rocks again, he said quietly. Third evening in a row. She hasn't come down for supper. Jesus nodded, unsurprised and unhurried. Then someone should go to her. He looked around the circle, and his eyes landed on Bisket, whose golden tuft was already standing straight up with a readiness to run, and then on Pip, curled small and grey at the very edge of the group, half hoping not to be noticed. The two of you, he said. Together I never send anyone to help all by themselves, not one lamb alone, always two. Pip's ears went flat. Why me? she whispered to no one in particular. Biscuit, of course, was already on her feet, and already pulling the thick wool wrap down from its peg by the fire in case the night turned cold, and reaching for the big jar of blackberry preserves kept for special treats, piling both into her arms like she was packing for a week away. Leave those, said Jesus gently, before she had even reached the gate. You don't need a wrap for warmth or a jar of sweets to carry this. Go just as you are, and trust that whatever is needed will be there when you reach her. Biscuit set the wrap and the jar back down, blinking, and found to her surprise that she felt lighter without them, not heavier. Now, said Jesus, before either of them could trot off again, there is one thing you say first, before anything else, before you ask what's wrong, before you offer to help, you go right up to her, you touch your forehead gently to hers the way the fold has always done when someone arrives, and you say peace be with you. That comes first. Everything else comes after. Biscuits tuft drooped half an inch. But peace be with you doesn't do anything, she said. It doesn't fix a sore leg or cheer anybody up. Shouldn't we bring something that actually helps? Old woolly's honey or a funny story or a game to take her mind off things? Jesus didn't answer her right away. He only looked toward the rocks, where a small, dusty brown shape sat curled so tightly that only the tip of one flopped ear showed above her own legs. Go and see, he said. So the two of them went, picking their way across the darkening grass together, and Pip noticed, without quite deciding to notice it, that she was not half as afraid walking beside someone as she would have been walking alone. When they reached Nettle, Biskit did exactly what she always did. She bounded right up, bright and busy, already talking about the bit of honeycomb tucked in her wool, and a joke she knew, and how there was still time to catch the last of the big orange sun if Nettle would only come and look. Nettle didn't move. She curled in tighter, the way a fern curls when you touch it. Pip hung back a moment. She didn't know any jokes, she didn't have honey. She wasn't even sure her own voice would come out right, out here, in the near dark, in front of someone she hardly knew. But she remembered the night she'd gotten lost past the alder trees, chasing blackberries, certain she didn't deserve to be rescued, and had looked up at the lantern anyway, and been found. So she sat down quietly in the grass, not too close, touched her small grey forehead gently near Nettle's, and said, so softly it was almost just breath. Peace be with you, Nettle. Nettle went still. Then slowly one eye opened. Nobody said anything for a long moment. Then Nettle said, in a voice rusty from not being used. You didn't ask me what's wrong? No, said Pip. You didn't try to fix anything. Not yet, said Pip. And something in Nettle loosened, not all at once, but enough. Enough that when Biskit, quieter now, offered her half the honey after all, Nettle actually took it. Enough that she told them haltingly about the thing that had been sitting on her chest for three days, a small, unkind thing one of the littlest lambs had said about her flopped ear, turned over and over in her head until it had grown enormous. Later, walking the three of them back together under the first stars, Biskit turned the whole thing over out loud, the way she did. I brought the honey and told the jokes, and none of it worked, not until Pip just sat there and said peace. Why does that part have to come first? Jesus, who had come part way out to meet them, answered plainly. Peace goes first, because a heart that's shut tight can't let anything else in, not honey, not jokes, not even love, until it feels safe enough to open, even a little. Pip's peace was what made Nettle feel safe enough to open up. Only then could your honey do any good at all. Pip walked a little taller than usual between her two friends, and said nothing at all, but for once her ears were not flat. Jesus never sends us to fix someone all by ourselves. He sends us together, and he always asks us to bring peace first before we try to make anything better. Sometimes the kindest thing we can say to someone who is hurting isn't an answer at all. It's simply I'm here and I wish you peace. Say that first, and every other kindness will be able to help. Dear Jesus, thank you for never sending me anywhere alone. Help me bring peace first to the people I love, especially when they are sad or hurting. Let my kind words and my quiet time with them open the door for your love to come in. Amen. Good night, little lamb. God loves you so much. Sweet dreams.