I’ve been (more than a little) nervous each morning as I’ve walked to the pasture to let the girls out of the barn.

“What if…” scenarios have filled my heart and mind as I’ve made the trek to the garage to put on my pink rubber boots, through the exterior garage door to the backyard, across the yard and past the chicken coops and the rabbit hutches, as I move the electric line from across the top of the gate, then move through the large pasture gate, as I greet Dixie who has stood guard over the farm while we’ve slept in our warm beds, and finally to the weathered barn door.

What sounds will I hear as the creatures inside recognize the sound of my approach?

Will I be able to sneak a peek through the crack between the door and the wall before I’m able to remove the lock and fling wide the barrier that separates us?

Will Killdeer be okay? What if she isn’t? What would I do? How would I handle it?

That morning walk these last few days has been long. And holy. Filled with prayer. Commingled with pangs of anxiety. But also hope. And surrender.

As I sat on the milk stand last night, in my usual place behind Killdeer, listening to the pangs of warm milk hit the cold metal pail, I was overcome.

Because Killdeer shouldn’t be alive.

She labored for hours and hours Friday. She had a stillborn birth that needed intervention. And at the time, in the middle of the emergency, I didn’t have a glove. I don’t even know if I had a clean hand.

There was too much time between the second and the third kid.

She barely ate or drank or went potty the entire weekend. She would eat if I brought her food, and she took the vitamins I gave her, but she wasn’t eating nearly as much as she usually does.

And then she had a dead kid inside her uterus for two additional days, as she continued to labor and struggle.

There’s no way that a floppy, boneless, lifeless ear should have ever had a single chance to present first so that I could figure out what was going on Sunday night.

And then she had to experience me pulling the dead kid from her body.
The trauma of that kidding over the course of three days should have put her into shock long before Sunday.

The kid should have been in the beginning stages of decomp after that long inside of her. A goat’s internal temperature is normally between 101.1 and 103.1 degrees. And yet the kid looked entirely normal. He didn’t smell. His fur and skin looked normal. Everything about that poor little goat kid looked completely normal.

Killdeer should have gotten a major infection days ago. At the least she should have gone into shock and died almost immediately.

I’ve seen and heard of enough goat experiences to know that other goats have died for less. Much less.

And yet, there she stands in my pasture, mahhing and fussing at me, rejecting bananas (because she only eats those when she’s pregnant; otherwise she hates them), and begging for apple and oatmeal treats.

I can’t even say with certainty what emotions I felt last night, sitting on that milk stand, because I think it was all of them.

And as the tears flowed, all I could keep saying was, “Thank You.”

I do not deserve this kind of kindness.

Why should the God of the universe – infinite, omnipotent, almighty, perfect, holy – care about me?
I am a blade of grass, a whisp of smoke, a tossed ocean wave, a fading flower… I am finite, weak, small, and imperfect. Just a sinful human. With a heart bent toward selfishness, pride, irritation, anger, bitterness…

Why should such a God bend His ear to hear? Why should such a God look upon His creation and care? Who am I?

“Who am I that You would love me so gently?
Who am I that You would recognize my name?
Who am I that You would speak to me so softly?
Conversation with the Love Most High?
Who am I?”

And yet… I know that’s it’s not about me. It’s not about any goodness in and of myself that I could bring, because I don’t have any.

It’s about Him.

It doesn’t matter what earthly, human standard of goodness I may possess. It doesn’t matter the skills I can bring to the table, to a ministry, or to others. It doesn’t matter if I have certificates or stacks of accolades. It doesn’t matter if I’m equipped and educated by universities. If I’m pretty, or smart, or talented.

None of that matters.

What matters is this: there is a God who created the heavens and the earth. He created all things, and by Him all things hold together. He sees from before time began, and He sees to the end of the age. He is Alpha and Omega. He reigns, now and forever.

And that same God – the One who causes mountains to tremble, kings to rise and fall, and tells ocean waves how far they can lap against the shore – that God… loves me. And He loves you.

Not because we deserve it. Not because we are good. Not because we have anything we can offer Him.

But because He is good, and because He is love.

And whenever I look at my sweet goat Killdeer, or the two precious doelings who survived this past weekend, I will be reminded of that.