For the woman who bought what the false shepherd sold, because it looked almost real and cost far less.
Mass was rather memorable the other day. Our priest said something that stopped me dead in my tracks and ohhh I had to take notes. Before I tell you what he said, let’s gist small abi?
Walk into any market that sells designer handbags and you will find two kinds.
The original. And the imitation.
The imitation is not always obvious. The craftsmen who make them have studied the original with extraordinary care; the stitching, the hardware, the weight, the smell of the leather, the precise curve of the logo. Some are so close to the original that only an expert eye, trained by long familiarity with the genuine article, can tell the difference at a glance.
But there is always a difference.
The original was made to last. It was built with the kind of care that comes from a maker who understands the full value of what they are producing. The imitation was built to sell quickly, cheaply, to a woman in a hurry who wanted the result without the cost of the real thing.
And the woman who carries the imitation knows.
Not always consciously. But somewhere, in the quiet honesty of herself, she knows.
Because the zip sticks.
Because the lining frays.
Because six months later, what looked almost real in the market begins to reveal, in the ordinary use of daily life, exactly what it was made of.
She paid less.
And she is paying for it still.
There is a passage of scripture so familiar that most of us can recite it without opening a Bible. We learned it in Sunday school. We have seen it on greeting cards and embroidered on cushions and printed in elegant fonts on the walls of Christian homes.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
But familiarity is the enemy of understanding. And I want to ask you not as a theological exercise, but as a woman asking another woman a question that matters; when last did you sit with that sentence and feel the full weight of what it is actually saying?
🌹 The Lord.
Not an influencer with a following.
Not a minister with an impressive platform and a miracle or two to his name.
Not the content creator whose wisdom sounds almost biblical, close enough to the original that you would barely notice the difference until the lining begins to fray.
The Lord. The specific, particular, ancient, unimitated, unimitable shepherd who knew your name before your mother chose it. Who formed you before the world had a category for what you would become. Who has been tending you, patiently, persistently, with the kind of care that only a maker who understands the full value of what He is producing can sustain.
🌹 Is my shepherd.
Present tense. Active. Not was. Not will be, though He is that too. Right now. In this season. In this ordinary, complicated, beautiful, exhausting life you are living. He is shepherding you. He is leading you. He is watching the fields you are drawn to and walking you past the ones that look green and close and immediately satisfying, because He knows which pasture was prepared specifically for your feet.
🌹 I shall not want.
Not: I shall have everything I desire.
Not: nothing difficult will come.
But: under this particular shepherd, with this particular guide, following this particular voice, I will lack nothing I actually need.
The question is not whether that shepherd exists.
The question is whether you know His voice well enough to follow it.
Because here is what nobody says out loud in the Christian spaces we occupy.
There are other shepherds.
They come with microphones and movements and carefully constructed messages that carry just enough truth to feel trustworthy. They come with shortcuts; cheaper, faster, more immediately satisfying than the patient path the Good Shepherd is walking you down.
They come with results that look, from a distance, exactly like the real thing. Moses dropped his staff and it became a serpent and the magicians of Pharaoh’s court did the same. The miracle was identical. The crowd saw the same thing. But the source was not the same. And the destination was not the same.
Not everyone who calls Him Father is His child.
Not every miracle is from His hand.
Not every voice that carries His name is carrying His heart.
And a woman who cannot distinguish the original from the imitation; a woman whose ear has not been trained by long and intimate familiarity with the genuine article, will follow the wrong shepherd. Not because she is foolish. Not because she does not love God. But because the imitation was built by craftsmen who studied the original carefully. And she was in a hurry. And it was cheaper. And it looked almost real.
Until the lining began to fray.
Aha, now, let me tell you what the priest said in the opening prayers that has stayed with me like a splinter I cannot stop pressing.
Forgive us, Father, when we listened to the voice of strangers and followed them.
Read that again.
I must say at this point that what I heard during the homily that day inspired this letter.
Go back at this point and read that prayer yet again…
Not: forgive us for following obvious evil.
Not: forgive us for the dramatic, undeniable rebellion. But for the quiet, gradual, almost imperceptible drift that happens when a woman stops tending her ability to recognize the voice she was made to follow and begins, slowly, to be shaped by the voices that are loudest, closest, most immediately compelling.
The influencer whose lifestyle looks like the life you want.
The minister whose words feel good but leave you emptier than before.
The community that validates every feeling without ever pointing you back to the Word.
The shortcut that promised a harvest you did not have to cultivate.
Forgive us, Father, for when we listened to the voice of strangers and followed them.
The Good Shepherd knows your name.
Not your handle. Not your role. Not the version of you that shows up performing for an audience that cannot complete you. Your name; the one spoken over you before you were formed, in the language of a love so particular and so ancient that no imitation has ever come close to replicating it.
And He is not in a hurry with you.
The farmer who planted waits for the harvest to mature. He understands the pain of cultivation. He knows the difference between a fruit that is ready and a fruit that looks ready. And he will not pick before the time; not because he does not want the harvest, but because he wants it whole. He wants it at its full, extraordinary, worth-the-wait best.
That is what the Good Shepherd wants for you.
Not the cheaper version. Not the shortcut that gets you there faster but costs you everything when the lining frays. The full, patient, cultivated, worth-the-wait version of the woman, the wife, the mother, the purpose-carrier He designed before the world had a category for what you would become.
But you will only find your way to that woman by learning to follow the right voice.
And that begins here. Today. With this question:
Do you know His voice?
Not: have you heard of Him.
Not: do you attend a place where His name is spoken. But when He speaks, in the quiet, in the Word, in the still small voice beneath all the noise of a world full of loud mics and popular opinions, do you know it is Him?
So here is where you begin:
🌹 One. Return to the original voice.
Before any other voice had access to you; before the influencer, the algorithm, the well-meaning friend, the toxic thread, the minister with the loud mic and the impressive following, there was a voice that knew your name.
Not your handle. Not your role. Your name. The one spoken before you were formed. Jeremiah 1:5 says before I formed you in the womb I knew you. That knowing is the original frequency. And everything you have been struggling to hear clearly is struggling to be heard because the original frequency has been buried under noise.
This week, before you open any app, any podcast, any feed, return to the Word. Not as a discipline. As a recalibration. Train your ear on the original until the imitations become obvious.
John 10:27
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
🌹 Two. Audit the voices you have been following.
Not all shepherds announce their intentions. Some arrive with miracles. Some arrive with wisdom that sounds biblical but sits slightly off. Some arrive with shortcuts; cheaper, faster, more immediately satisfying than the patient path the Good Shepherd is walking you down.
The question is never only does this work? The question is always: where does this lead? And who sent it? Sit down this week with honesty and ask yourself: whose voice has been shaping my decisions, my self-image, my marriage, my mothering, my purpose? And does that voice sound like the one who knew my name before I was born?
Matthew 7:15
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
🌹 Three. Choose the patient path over the cheap shortcut.
The Good Shepherd is not in a hurry with you. He will pass through fields that look attractive, green, close, immediately satisfying and keep walking. Not to deprive you. But because He knows which pasture was prepared specifically for your feet.
The imitation shepherd is always cheaper. Always faster. Always more immediately available. But the fruit he offers was never cultivated for you and when you open it, you will find it unripe. Every time. Proverbs 3:5-6 is not a memory verse. It is a navigational instruction for a woman learning to trust the Shepherd’s route over her own instincts.
This week, identify the shortcut you have been tempted by. And choose the cultivated path instead.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.
🌹 Four. Practice the posture of yieldedness.
Vocations are born from listening. You hear voices, sounds, noise; but you do not listen. And because you do not listen, you do not know what to do. And because you do not know what to do, you cannot do less, be more, or stay rare.
Yieldedness is different from passivity. It is not the absence of strength. It is the daily decision to be a sheep rather than a goat.
The goat jumps at every green field regardless of ownership and gets chased out, injured, disoriented. The sheep stays close. Stays yielded. And finds pasture, not because she was passive, but because she trusted the one who knows exactly where her pasture is.
Today, practice staying close. Practice the discipline of not jumping at every attractive field. Practice the quiet, countercultural, deeply Rare posture of a woman who has decided that the voice of the Good Shepherd is worth waiting to hear.
Psalm 23:1-3
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
Forgive us, Father.
When we listened to the voice of strangers and followed them.
And lead us back to the original. Back to the voice that knew us first. Back to the pasture that was always prepared for our specific, particular, irreplaceable feet.
We are listening now.
Until you read from me again, remember:
Do Less.
Be More.
Stay Rare.
Yours in grace,
The Lady Lorie
❤️❤️❤️
Declaration Corner
I declare over you today, that your ear will be trained. That the noise will lose its power over you as the original voice becomes more familiar, more recognizable, more irresistible than anything the false shepherd is offering.
That you will look back at the shortcuts you almost took and understand; with gratitude, not regret; why the Good Shepherd kept walking. That the pasture He has been leading you toward will exceed everything the cheaper version promised.
He knows your name.
Follow His voice.
Stay close.
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