The Lord is our shepherd—but what exactly does that mean to a child who lives miles from the nearest sheep?
In Sammy and His Shepherd, Susan Hunt walks families through the twenty-third psalm one verse at a time, showing readers what it means for a good shepherd to lead his flock to still waters or through dark valleys. She does this through the story of Sammy, a sheep who lives within the Good Shepherd’s fold, and of Sammy’s friend, a neglected sheep living in the neighboring pasture.
Sammy’s friend has never experienced the care that Sammy’s shepherd gives him, and as Sammy explains it to her, Sammy begins to appreciate more fully the gift it is to belong to the Good Shepherd. And when the shepherd purchases Sammy’s friend and welcomes her into his flock, Sammy walks alongside her and helps her learn to trust her new shepherd’s care even when she doesn’t fully understand it.
Part devotional, part storybook, Sammy and His Shepherd illustrates the relationship of a good shepherd to his sheep so beautifully that I find myself thinking about it still, weeks after we finished the book. And it’s clear I’m not the only one still thinking about it: our daughters have been sketching sheep and shepherds since the book’s end. By telling this as a story, rather than as a straightforward devotional, Susan Hunt has given us something to picture when we read Psalm 23. And she has helped my daughters take that psalm—and the glorious truths within it—to heart in a new way.
Sammy and His Shepherd: Seeing Jesus in Psalm 23
Susan Hunt; Cory Godbey (2008)
