For the one waiting at the wilderness edge

The shepherd carries the found sheep on his shoulders, rejoicing. Have you been listening for your own voice in the wilderness, when heaven is already ringing with a different sound? Your grief has become a vigil you mistake for love, and you have taken the shepherd's place as the one who must find. You have stood so long at the edge of the wilderness that you have forgotten the shepherd's shoulders are not yours.

But the shepherd does not ask you to carry the sheep; he carries it himself. The rejoicing Shepherd carries what you cannot. The crucified and risen Christ bears the returning one on his shoulders, and heaven's joy is not a distant applause but the Father's delight in the return of a child. The same Christ who left the ninety-nine to seek the lost now calls his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him.

Will you let the sound of heaven's rejoicing drown out the silence of your own waiting? You are not the shepherd; you are the one invited to the house where the neighbors are called to rejoice. Step back from the edge, and let the joy of the found sheep be the sound you carry.