A Shepherd's Love

Some years ago, while I was about 16 my father had his own little ranch back behind our home. It was a pretty big piece of land, one that grew lush green in the spring. When it rained, the water all gathered up at the bottom of the valley. My father had sheep in his land and every morning he found one who was victim of the wolves who visited the night before. This happened a number of times, finally my dad came to us as a family at the dinner table and asked me an my brother to join him in sleeping in the barn to scare away any predators. That evening me an my brother packed up sleeping bags, pillows and blankets for our little adventure we would be having. I remember the night being so calm you could hear the wolves howl in the distance. The sky was so clear that the stars could be seen for miles. That night we slept on the roof of the barn inside a huge cardboard box so we could shoot the wolves from the top. As the night went on, the storm clouds grew closer an closer, it started to rain, an thunder shook the ground. As the sky lite up from the lightning, crashing and popping only got louder and louder. After a few minutes, our cardboard shelter was ruined and we were forced to climb down inside. By the time we got inside the barn we were all soaked. All I remember is falling asleep from being so tired that night. Using the sound of a thousand drops of water every second to make me fall asleep. When I woke up to the rain hitting my face, I remember seeing this huge black figure with arms stretched out looking down on me an my brother, with a blanket in hands to block the rain. Protecting us, an doing everything possible to keep us dry. It was my father. He had sacrificed his whole night sleep to protect us. Ironically, it was his sheep that he was sacrificing, but his sheep he was protecting. Just like my father sacrificed himself for us, so does Christ right? Of course, God sacrificed his only son so that we could have eternal life and I think that alone is amazing for us to understand. It was out of love that he did that, out of compassion and its great to know God was thinking of us at that time.

I think its only fair that I share the ending of this story even though how inspiring it is.
The "Wolf" we were looking for turned out to be our family dog that killed the sheep
And...
The rain never stopped, it got harder and louder. We ended up running home in the pouring rain, laughing.