Let me explain it to you. This is a picture of Alice, one of our original ducks on the farm. Alice waddles to her own beat. To that end she does not always come off the pond at dusk. She is just enjoying herself and does not want to come back to the security and warmth of the coop area. Last night was one of those nights, try as we may she would not come off the pond. As we did our evening chores we checked on her. She would not budge from the pond. As we finished for the night, the temps dropped and the snow flew. In the morning I looked out to see it snowed a bit overnight, the temps had really dropped and the wind was now howling. I got dressed to tend the rest of the flock then go up and find if Alice had survived the night and see if I could now persuade her to come back down. As I put down the feed bucket to unlock their coop area, there was Alice gulping down feed from the bucket. She had come down during the wee hours of the morning. After she ate her fill, I lovingly picked her up and placed her into the coop. The weather was much too harsh to let them out today.
As I write this, I am reminded of the parable Jesus told of the Good Shepherd, who left the 99 sheep to search for the one lost sheep. When the shepherd found the lost one, how he rejoiced! It gives us a small glimpse of how our Heavenly Father rejoices when one of his lost ones is found!