This is the topic the stake presidency gave Marjorie and the other stake leaders upon which they are to speak this coming year.  When I heard it, my mind immediately added punctuation so that the topic became, "Me?!! A Shepherd in Israel."  I might also add the phrase, "Are you kidding?"—I'm a nobody, and everyone else knows it.  I'm just a common person and am not capable of herding people around.

Every one of us has those same thoughts, and they're all wrong.  They're all wrong because we misunderstand what a shepherd is, and because we misunderstand who we really are.

A shepherd isn't a person who "herds" animals or people.  A shepherd is a beloved leader.  Shepherds in ancient Israel locked their flocks in a common enclosure at night with other shepherds' flocks and placed a watchman over them.  In the morning each shepherd stood at the gate of the enclosure and called his sheep.  His sheep knew his voice, trusted him to lead them to pasture, and willingly followed him.  The sheep of the other shepherds hung back or fled because they didn't know that voice.

To "the shepherd of the sheep…the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice:  and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

"And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them and the sheep follow him:  for they know his voice.

"And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him:  for they know not the voice of strangers."  (John 10:2-5).

Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd:  the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

"But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth:  and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

"The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."  (John 10:11-13).

Notice in this parable that the sheep follow the shepherd because they know and trust him, and that the shepherd leads, rather than drives, them.

My brother was distressed to come home one day and find all of their calves out.  Try as he might he could not race around fast enough to gather them together and drive them back into their pen.  Then he remembered that they were bucket calves, and were used to being hand fed.  He turned toward the gate, called them, and every one quickly followed him back into the pen.

We're taught that without the Fall Adam and Eve "would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery."  (2 Ne. 2:23).  Astute parents can probably see a little connection here—no children, no misery!

A mother or a father is a shepherd, and as such, must lead and not push.

Bruce C. Hafen once said in exasperation to his wife, Marie, "The Lord placed Adam and Eve on the earth as full-grown people.  Why couldn't he have done that with this boy of ours, the one with the freckles and the unruly hair?"  She replied, "The Lord gave us that child to make Christians out of us."

"One night Marie exhausted herself for hours encouraging that child to finish a school assignment to build his own diorama of a Native American village on a cookie sheet.  It was a test no hireling would have endured.  At first he fought her efforts, but by bedtime, I saw him lay 'his' diorama proudly on a counter.  He started for his bed, then turned around, raced back across the room, and hugged his mother, grinning with his fourth-grade teeth.  Later I asked Marie in complete awe, 'How did you do it?'  She said, 'I just made up my mind that I couldn't leave him, no matter what.'  Then she added, 'I didn't know I had it in me.'"  (Ensign, Nov. 1996, pg. 27).

I'm sure we've all been there and done that.  A mother is a shepherd.  They're not paid to bear, raise and teach these children.  They're not hired to do it.  There's no contract in place that they might walk away from when the going gets tough; but rather, as mothers in Zion, they have covenants in place that they must not ignore under any circumstance.  These children are going to follow us whether our example is good or bad.  They're going to grow up having the same opinions we have, belong to the same political party, get upset in the same way we do, raise their own children with the same gentleness or harshness with which they were raised, possess the same work ethic their parents possessed, and either be good or just occasional home and visiting teachers depending upon what their mom and dad did with the same assignments.

A mother is a shepherd.  Mothers must try to lead rather than push.

A Primary, Young Women or Relief Society worker is a shepherd, too.

As a young woman Marjorie had to complete the goals in her Beehive Book.  She had to do 5 hours of ironing.  Her mother started her out with hankies and worked her up to shirts.  Five hours was a long time.

Her mother then taught her how to bake bread to fulfill another goal.  The bread turned out so well that her mother made her take a loaf to the Beehive activity that Sister Gwilliam, her advisor, was holding at her cabin up Pine Creek.  Marjorie was hesitant and embarrassed.  After all, the Gwilliams owned the bakery in town and made bread every day.  Her homemade bread didn't look like theirs.  Sister Gwilliam, Marjorie's shepherd, raved and raved over her bread.  Homemade bread was a treat to her.  All she ever got was dull, white bread from their bakery.  Sister Gwilliam remembered Marjorie’s bread and talked about it for years.  It was very reinforcing.  Sister Gwilliam reinforced her regularly because she loved Marjorie and complimented her at every opportunity.

To be a shepherd one doesn't have to be a parent or even have a Church calling.  I frequently think and speak of Glen and Edna May, and S. H. and Mae Hyde.  The Mays and the Hydes were elderly, stalwart members of the ward in Baker when I joined the Church.

Glen May had been bishop in the years before I knew him.  He owned a bicycle shop.  He was a quiet man who didn't talk much, and who spoke softly when he did.  He spoke at my baptism.  He would often come alongside me, put his arm around my waist, and give me such a hard squeeze that I'd almost cry out.

1. H. (Sebastian Henry) Hyde was also a quiet man. He wasn't very big.  He and Mae owned and operated a dry cleaning business, and were the church custodians when I knew them.

I watched those two saintly men, and decided that if I ever got sick, I would ask the two of them to administer to me because they were the most Christ-like men I knew.  They were shepherds to me and never knew it.  They simply loved me, and I loved them.  Glen May became a widower and moved to the state of Washington to be with one of his children.  Years later I had a dream wherein Glen put his arm around my waist and gave me the old, familiar squeeze.  In the morning a phone call informed me that Glen had passed away in the night, and I was being asked to speak at his funeral.

Mae Hyde was as saintly as her husband.  She was the stalwart of the ward in my mind.  I always feel something akin to reverence when I think of her.  I was dumbfounded—flabbergasted—when Mae bore her testimony and told of her conversion to the Church.  She said that her son had taken up with the Mormon boys and was attending their youth activities.  She decided that she needed to find out what her boy was getting involved in, so she obtained a Book of Mormon, got her cigarettes and a bottle of beer, and laid down on the couch to read.  What she read changed her life, her husband's life, her son's life and probably the lives of countless others whom she, her husband, her son and his family touched for good thereafter.  I greatly admired this white-haired old lady and was astounded with the thought that she had ever had a liking for cigarettes and beer.  The example she set and the testimony she frequently bore made her a shepherd during the critical first formative year of my Church membership.

A shepherd is a beloved leader.  The Hydes, the Mays, Sister Gwilliam, mothers, and my brother to the calves were all beloved leaders.  They were looked up to and trusted, sometimes without even knowing that the example they set was casting them in the role of a shepherd.

We weren't sent to earth to earn a living or to have fun.  We can and should do both of those things; but we must never forget that the real purpose for which we were sent here was to learn of our own position in the family of God, and to learn to love and serve all of our brothers and sisters within that family.  When I erase the question mark that I put in the stake presidency's assigned topic, and can say with conviction, "Me!! a Shepherd in Israel," I'll have taken a giant step toward understanding the purpose of life.