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Good evening, little lambs. Tonight's story is called The Darkest Part of the Path, inspired by the Gospel of Matthew twenty two fourteen. There is a verse almost every shepherd hearted person has leaned on at some point The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing. It means that even when the path ahead turns dark or strange, we are never walking it alone, because the shepherd never stops walking right there beside us, every single step. And so tonight we are walking home with clover, biscuit, and the rest of the flock, along the one stretch of evening path that every lamb on Shepherd's Hill knows by heart, and still has never quite learned to love. They called it the Shadow Gap, the place where the path dipped low between two tall grey boulders leaning toward each other like old friends sharing a secret. Even on the brightest afternoon the sun never reached the bottom of that dip. The air there was always a little colder than the air around it, and every sound, a hoofstep, a cough, the snap of a twig, came back twice, bouncing off the stone. The lambs crossed it every single evening on their way home to supper and warm straw. None of them had ever gotten lost in it. All of them still held their breath a little going through. That evening the light over Shepherd's Hill had turned the long gold color it only gets right before dusk, and the whole flock sat together near the stream while Jesus spoke quietly about a song the shepherds had always sung to calm their flocks at nightfall. The Lord is my shepherd, he said. I will not want for anything. He makes me lie down in soft grass. He leads me beside quiet water. Biscuit's ears relaxed at that part. Soft grass and quiet water sounded easy to believe in. Then Jesus went on, gentler now, even if I walk through the darkest, scariest part of the valley, I will not be afraid, because you are with me. He lifted his wooden staff and tapped it twice against a flat stone. Tap, tap. A few lambs grinned without meaning to. It was a sound they had all heard a thousand times, the same way you know your own mother's footsteps coming down a dark hallway without needing to see her face. You won't always be able to see me in the gap, Jesus said. But if you listen, you'll hear me comin'. Biskit raised her head right away, the way she always did when something didn't quite sit right with her. But what if it's windy? she asked. What if you're all the way at the back of the flock and the tapping gets lost in the wind, and I can't hear it at all? Then what? Nobody answered right away. Clover turned the question over slowly, the way she turned over most things that mattered to her. I don't think it would mean you weren't there, she said at last, thinking it through out loud. You already know exactly where each of us is. You know our names. A shepherd doesn't find his lost lamb by waiting to hear which one shouts the loudest. He already knows which one is missing before she even calls out. She wasn't sure she had puzzled out the whole of it, but the word settled into her like a stone, finding the bottom of a pond, sure and still, and Jesus nodded like she'd found something real. Bracken had been sitting at the very edge of the circle only half listening. Bracken had come to Shepherd's Hill months ago after a storm tore apart his home hillside, and left him burr covered and scruffy among the settled flock. He still felt some nights like the one who didn't quite belong, the one who bolted instead of walked, who leapt before he looked, who talked faster than his own feet could keep up with. Tonight, listening to Jesus talk about the gap, Bracken decided something. Tonight he would be first through it, fastest, not scared of anything. Then nobody could call him the jumpy, burr covered lamb from the storm ever again. So when the flock rose to walk home and the boulders of the gap came into view, grey and leaning in the fading light, Bracken didn't wait for Clover or Old Wooly or anyone else. He put his head down and ran. The dip swallowed him whole. One second there was gold evening light on his back, the next cold shadow and stone walls on either side, and his own hoof steps bouncing back at him from every direction at once. He didn't see the root curling up out of the dirt. He went down hard, legs tangling, and when he scrambled back up, he didn't know which way was forward anymore. The dark pressed in close. He called out, and his own voice came back to him twice, which was worse than no answer at all. Then he heard it. Tap, tap, getting louder, not an echo this time, closer every second, steady, real. Bracken was not alone. Jesus had been walking at the back of the flock the whole time, right where Bracken couldn't see him from the front. A warm hand found his wool in the dark before Bracken even finished turning around. I'm here, Jesus said. I didn't go anywhere. That was the whole of it. Nothing more needed saying. Bracken stood there shaking for a moment, and then he understood something he hadn't understood ten minutes before. He had thought being brave meant going fast and going alone, so nobody would ever call him scared again. But the staff had been tapping the whole time, right behind him, and he hadn't needed to outrun it. He had only needed to stay close enough to hear it. They walked the rest of the gap together. Jesus, then Bracken, then Clover, close on his other side, the tap of the staff marking out the path like a drum beat nobody had to think about to follow. When they came out the far end, the home pasture opened up warm and gold, with the evening meal already waiting, and the first stars just beginning to prick through overhead. And that is the heart of tonight's song. Jesus doesn't only walk with us through the soft grass and the quiet water, the easy, sunny parts of our days. He walks with us through the dark, echoing parts too. And even on the nights we can't see him or can't quite hear him, he already knows exactly where we are, because he knows us by name, and a shepherd never, ever stops coming to find the one he loves. Close your eyes now, little lamb. Wherever your own dark places are tonight, he is already walking right there with you. Dear Jesus, my good shepherd, thank you for walking with me through every part of my day. The easy, sunny parts, and the dark, scary parts too. Even when I can't see you, help me remember that you already know exactly where I am, because you know my name and you never stop coming to find me. Keep me close to you tonight. Amen. Good night, little lamb. God loves you so much. Sweet dreams.