As we walked into the dark FFA barn to do chores before the girls’ basketball game, we heard the bleating of sheep when Bobby drew their attention with a flip of the light switch. I watched as he fed the six expectant ewes; two Lincoln, two Suffolk and two Dorset ewes all stood there looking while he broke the bale of hay and began to feed it.

While I observed our little flock, I noticed one of the Dorset ewes hanging back and not diving into the hay like the other sheep. I made the prediction she would be the first one to lamb, and it wasn’t going to be long.

The next day I received a text from the third-grade teacher at school that we had lambs, and when I looked at the picture of the mom and her babies, sure enough, my prediction was correct.

Word spread of our newborns like a dramatic rant on Facebook, and when it was time for our ag science class, the students rolled in with jackets on and ready to head out to the barn to see our new arrivals.

The new babies and their mom were in their lambing jug and one was nursing. The students had to tromp through the sheep pen to get to the jug. And even the student with her brand-new boots on ventured into the pen, sheep manure and all, to get a look at the new babies.

We looked each lamb over carefully while the mom stood there watching intently. Everyone was impressed with how cute they were.

But the big win of the day was the two students who discovered the first lamb and witnessed the birth of the second one. This was huge. The students have been taking turns checking on these lambs every hour during school for three weeks.

While I figured the ewes would lamb in the middle of the night, I was hoping some of them would lamb during the day and that someone would catch a glimpse of the miracle of birth.

Think about the millions of people who live and die without ever witnessing a birth of any kind. And yesterday, two basketball-playing, Snapchatting teenagers whose biggest worry was what they will do this weekend stood in a straw-filled pen in a little FFA barn in rural America and watched the birth of a little lamb.

Will this change the course of their lives? Probably not.

But witnessing the birth of any kind can change your perspective, give you a renewed sense of what’s important and provide an enduring hope that can only come from a Creator who ordered yesterday and lines up tomorrow, where nothing is coincidental.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.