On Friday, March 5, 2010 at 3:00 pm, I noticed that our little Yorkie dog, Rocky, had run away. My husband and I got in separate cars and went in opposite directions looking for him and quickly realized, he could be anywhere. I broke the news to the kids when I got them from school...we cried. We drove until dark and I listened to my girls call his name out of the car windows, through tears, as their voices cracked. (I don't even need to explain how that made me feel). That night was hard. Me and the kids prayed for him to be safe. But as a mother, I felt that it was my duty to shield them from the complicated"ness" of God not always giving us what we ask for, especially trivial things like returning a lost pet. They asked for God to bring their dog back but in my head I debated on how I could explain that God may not bring him back because God's not a genie that grants wishes...God's busy with answering prayers about Haiti and people stricken with cancer.
The next morning we put "Lost Dog" flyers into the mail boxes in our subdivision and taped the flyers to the Stop Signs. We heard nothing.
The following day I got this great idea to go on Craigslist and post our Lost Dog poster in their Lost and Found section...there were 20 lost dogs in the past 2 days.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday passed. Then I got an email from my Craigslist posting. A woman saw my post and wanted to tell me that she had lost her little dog the same day but that she didn't hear anything back until she said that she would offer a reward. I thanked her for her advice but I couldn't get over the fact that someone had her dog and purposefully waited for a reward before returning him. You can sell a Yorkie for up to $1,000! She later sent me another email and it said "I'll be praying for you and your dog." I thought, how odd, she doesn't even know me...I didn't reply.
Meanwhile, my husband was at work talking with some co-workers and he mentioned that our dog had run away. One of his co workers said, "Let's pray for your dog to come back!" My husband felt silly and rejected his co-worker's kind offer and said "I don't think that God's worried about my dog (thanks for the offer though!)" We talked about it later that night and we both agreed, we wouldn't bother God about Rocky...we only sent quick prayers - silently, of course - that wherever he was, he wasn't being mistreated and was safe...that's a realistic prayer, right?
Thursday, March 11, 2010, my husband gets a call from a woman that asks him if we ever found our dog. He replies, No, and she tells him that on Friday when she was at the bank (about 1.5 miles away) a woman had found a little dog and that we should go there and ask about it. I drove in my car (at 90/mph) and gave them flyers to put up in their foyer. As I was leaving, I saw a little pet grooming store that just opened and thought, I should give them a flyer, its worth a try, right? I walked in and didn't even finish my sentence when the woman asked, did you lose a Yorkie?
Me: yes!!
Pet Grooming Lady: go to the bank.
Me: I just did!! They're gonna put up my flyer.
Pet Grooming Lady: No, no...ask for Gail, she works there, she called me and told me that if someone looks for a lost Yorkie, I have it.
Me: What?! The lady that found him wasn't a customer?! (Why didn't anyone tell me?)
I run across the street (baby and twins in tow) and...its closed. You've got to be kidding me! My girls are knocking on the door. I reprimand them and tell them to stop when a woman comes to the door (the one I gave the flyers to). I asked her for Gail. She says Gail's on vacation - what?! where's my dog?! She comes back Monday and I was going to give her your flyer then. Sheesh.
My inner dialogue went something like this:
Me: I'm gonna get my dog!
Me: Dang, I'm not gonna get my dog!
Me: Oh wait! Her name is Gail?! I'm gonna get my dog!
Me: Sheesh, I'm not gonna get my frikkin' dog.
We go home. At 7:00 pm, we get a call from a woman that says, I think I have your dog (Woo Hoo!-was someone holding out on me?) We get her address and race over and we see our little Rocky. Wow! Wait, he looks different. (I know what you're thinking, wrong dog-nope, it was him) The kind lady took him to the vet, the groomer, bought him a bed, toys, vet recommended food, and he had access to a doggy door and came and went as he pleased. After tons of thank you's and a check we said our goodbye's and she actually cried as we left with him. It turned out that he had traveled about a 1.5 miles, crossed a busy intersection and was roaming by the drive through of the bank. My yorkie....my little 6 lb. yorkie! How did he NOT get plastered onto the street?
My revelation of this experience? God hears. God cares (even about the little things). I learned that we can't feel like we're bothering him with "little things"...He'll be the judge of what's insignificant. Does He always do what we ask? No. Like I said, there were 20 missing dogs around the same time Rocky went missing. But my point is this: We can't only pray the prayers that seem "realistic"....let Him decide what he CAN and WILL do (is this not the definition of Sovereign?). I'm reminded of a verse that I heard when I was little - Matthew 6:26 and Matthew 10:29 + 30. Some of you that read this might feel cynical but my job today was not to prove anything...it was to simply state the facts of what I learned. God hears. God listens. God cares.
