“A Lost Baby Goat” by Reva Lachica Moore
Fully clad in a coat, boots and cap, eighteen-month-old Breely got into a small boat with Grandpa and her Mom. They went across the lake to go to Goat Hill to see a two-day-old baby goat named Lil’ Billy. At Goat Hill, there was an instant attraction between Breely and Lil’ Billy. The toddler didn’t want to leave until Mom promised they will visit Lil’ Billy again soon.
The following morning, dark clouds gathered quickly on the horizon and soon, heavy rain came down in torrents accompanied by thunder and lightning. Goats hate rain and so the adult goats quickly scampered to the barn at the end of the hill, oblivious that Lil’ Billy was left behind. With the whole herd suddenly gone, Lil’ Billy darted about quite confused. Natural instinct made the baby goat look for a place to escape the heavy downpour.
Worried about the baby goat, Grandpa went back to Goat Hill the next day. For 3 hours, he searched up and down the hill. The big goats were safe, but Lil’ Billy was nowhere to be found. Weird thoughts came rushing in. Two years back, an alligator had grabbed one of the goats. Is there another alligator in my lake? Grandpa paused a bit and shook his head. Then he noticed a small hole on a huge tree trunk. Could Billy have crawled inside the hole? He peered into the dark hole but did not see anything.
The next day Breely’s Mom and Grandpa went back to Goat Hill hoping to find Lil’ Billy still alive. They focused on the tree trunk with a hole at its base. The hole outside was much smaller than the space inside the massive tree trunk.
Suddenly, a clever thought came to Breely’s Mom. With cell phone in hand, she stuck her arm inside the hole as far as she could and took a picture. What showed gave them so much excitement and hope. Lil’ Billy was inside! But how to get the goat to come out proved to be a real challenge.
“I asked God for the goat to come out and after a while, the baby goat stood up and I distracted it with a piece of metal. It got close enough for me to grab it, so I did. It took two hours before the baby goat was rescued,” Breely’s mom said.
Such is so true in real life. God looks for the lost and rejoices over one sinner who goes to Him for deliverance. The Bible in Matthew 18: 12, 13 says, “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.”