Friday night there was a streak of pranks in our neighborhood. One of those pranks was that someone opened our back gate, letting our dogs out.
Before I go on, let me be honest. One of our dogs I love. Moses has a bad habit of barking through the night, but he’s bright, loving, and protective. He got out and stayed in the front yard. (Actually, someone else in our neighborhood was robbed when people, the same night, went into the back yard and broke a window. So it’s possible that Moses kept them away. People don’t know that his bark — which could put the fear of God in you — is way worse than his bite. As if he’d bite.)
The other dog, the dumb one, got out and ran. And ran. And ran.
I’m very thankful that I was never accused of letting Joshua out. It’s been no secret that he’s cherished a little less by me. Maybe it all started when we got him.
I like one dog. But one day Diane and Chris came home with another dog. A black cocker. And the reason we suddenly had a second dog — without discussing it — was that my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and their three girls got a little black cocker, but didn’t want to leave his brother. My question was, “How did that become MY problem?” Why didn’t the family who didn’t want to leave the brother take the brother? (Kelly, I still have to give you credit on that one, my friend!)
But something funny happened. When he got out and was gone, all I could think about was that he was OUR dog. Our dog was gone. So I scoured the neighborhood by car and by bike. Chris took Moses on a leash to look for him. (Ok, Moses is bright. But he’s not Lassie.) Diane went around in her van. After a couple hours, I figured it was all we could do.
But that’s not what my six-year-old niece thought. She called my cell phone later in the day trying to find out all the places Josh might know. I found out later she was drawing posters — eight of them — to be put up around the neighborhood. She drew a picture on each of a little black cocker and wrote, “We are looking for a black dog.” Then she put our address on there.
Sunday morning in our assembly we had a time when people could go to the front to write prayer requests and put them in baskets. I saw my little blonde niece up there writing and I knew what name she was putting on a card. So, included in all the names that we prayed for that morning was Joshua.
Shortly after the morning assembly, someone called. They had found him.
Go figure.
I’ve always wondered if God listened just a LITTLE BIT closer to the prayers of a child. Just a little bit.
Great story.
I knew that God was listening to my prayers when as an 8 year old, I started praying for a baby sister. My parents told me that for a mommy & daddy to have a baby, they prayed to God and when God thought the time was right, He would put a baby in mommy’s tummy. I had no understanding of the doctor’s who had told my mother that she would not be able to carry another child after a series of miscarriages led to the adoption of my little brother. I just knew that I wanted a sister to go with my brother! I prayed fervently every night after my “regular” prayers with my parents. I prayed during the day when I was playing with my dolls. I prayed all the time! Finally one summer morning my mother told us that we were going to the doctor with her that morning and yes, you guessed it, she was pregnant! Everything went perfectly and my little sister (this was back when there was no test to know if it was a boy or girl, but I always knew it would be a girl!!) was born and then came home from the hospital with my mother on my 9th birthday!! God gave me the best birthday present ever!! And His answer to my tender prayers was enough to cement my absolute desire to be one of His children all my life – truly the best gift I ever received.
I can’t comment on this, as I am prejudicial. I am not a dog person. But my sweet wife persuaded me to “try out” a black cocker spaniel named Roadie. Right away, he chewed up a door frame, chewed through the back yard fence and squeaked under the 12×30′ pen I built for him under our deck - just to get back to us.
Now there is no going back. When I had to sleep downstairs last night to keep a cold pack against my throbbing migrained head, using the back of the sofa to prop it there, he slept right by my side.
And if anything ever happened to him, I would not hesitate to encourage my kids - shoot, ANYBODY’s kids - to pray for his return.
That is just absolutely precious Mike.
Glad you got your dog back.
Cockers are notorious for bolting. We had a blonde cocker that ran like a greyhound everytime he got out.
Our current dog escaped one day after only a month with us. After looking for her for hours, we returned home where our five year old boy went straight to his room to pray for her return. It wasn’t 2 minutes before she was sitting on our doorstep.
Soon after I was married, our Bassett Hound ran away. It was Wednesday night and I just couldn’t go to church that night because I wanted to find Roscoe. I prayed and prayed to find that silly dog. When my parents came over to help us look, I sheepishly told my mother that I’d been praying about Roscoe. She said that if it’s important to me, it’s important to God.
…maybe God just really listens to prayers about dogs!
I really needed to read this. Recently I came across a trend where churches are having children preachers. They are claiming it is through children that God will teach adults. I agree with the premise of course, but they are dressing the kids like little adults, having them preach in Wal-Mart parking lots and outside abortion clinics. The kids sound just like adults.
Anyway this story reminded me about the Truth that God really does speak through children. He does it through their faith, their innocence, their inate desire to be helpful, and thier ability to care for others without alterior motives. As my best friend has said to me before, he would rather have a child praying for him than any preacher, clergy, or wise man.
Thanks as usual Mike for sharing.
I love the pink tongue sticking out the side of the mouth - this little artist knows a thing or two about dogs!!!!
Today I am having doubts about a prayer that I pray alot because I am not seeing answers - this story restored my faith.
I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks.
I can remember when our kids were young and we kept a prayer journal. We had cats. One kept running off. The kids prayed that Whitey would come back. He did. And then he left. He left so often that our prayer journal entries went from “Whitey come back” to WCB.
I think God used those experiences to grow faith in the kids.
The last worthless dog we had was a 9 year old small black poodle that my kids wanted to take because her owner, one of our church members, we found dead in her house from a stroke. We took her home. She immediately chewed the bathroom door trim off, went to the bathroom several places in the house, threw up after getting into the trash and eating some leftover goulash. Stupid dog. Well, after 3 years or so, she got sick, started pulling her hair off her logs, her eye bulged out from infection, and we decided to have her euthanized. I took her to the vet because I was emotionally unattached. Here’s how the conversation went at the vet.
Vet: “Can I help you?”
Me: “I…………. uh…………. need to……………. have Cinda put…..” and I started bawling my eyes out.
Stupid dog. That’s what they do to you.
As adults, we know better than to pray “silly” prayers for lost pets, right?
Maybe that’s why Jesus told us that we needed to have faith like children.
What a great story. I’m so glad Joshua is, indeed, HOME.
unless you become like one of these….
Precious. Taught us “grown ups” a lesson and hopefully one for her too! God cares. God listens. And I think…..God likes dogs.
You know cat’s don’t require fences.
Love the story! Your little niece has so much faith. I’m sure she will always remember how God answered her fervent prayers.
I think elderly widow ladies fall into that same category of fervent prayer that has a fast-track to the throne-room.
Case in point: There were two senior ladies in Canada praying from the time I was born it seemed that I would become a preacher. Here’s my history of fighting against their prayers:
I tried family therapy (even got a degree to match)- nope.
I tried youth ministry - 7 years worth!
campus ministry - not right;
family ministry; Nope.
Not right.
What am I doing now? You guessed it.
How do you pray against that? They are with the Lord grinning at this point…
Sadie showed up on our doorstep just before Christmas one year. We were living in Abilene, just married, happy with our two pugs. And then came Sadie. Lassie would’ve been proud of her. We didn’t mean to adopt her, but when the pound showed up to pick her up one day and the guy explained that she’d be euthanized in two days- “but don’t worry she’ll be brain dead before she feels any pain..”- Sadie officially became OUR dog. She walked the neighborhood kids to Alta Vista Elementary and dutifully waited for them at the end of the day outside the cafeteria. She growled at strange cars. She guarded the front porch at night and slept on our bed in the daytime. And when we moved to Harlingen, she figured out quickly that my mother (who lived next door) made breakfast early every morning and so she showed up at the back door sweetly waiting for her share of leftovers. We were devastated when she was killed by a car on one of her jaunts around the neigborhood- so devastated that we lost all sense of reason and rushed to the pound to adopt another dog in her memory. That’s how we got Boscoe- who absolutely didn’t share bloodlines with Lassie or Sadie. He loved to run, but wasn’t content with our 15 acres. He ran and ran and ran and ran. And then the pound picked him up. He’d been picked up and sent to the pokey so many times that the city said my husband might have to do jail time (I’m serious!)if he got out again. Our late-night searches for him (he fancied digging under the fence on his last potty break for the evening)became more fervent. The whole family would get involved. In fact, my three-year old still enjoys rolling down the window in the car and shouting “Bosssss-coe!” just for kicks. We tried everything to keep him home. We had a nice fence around the yard. Then a cattle fence around that. LAter we added an electic fence and outfitted Boscoe with a radio collar that zapped him when he tried to run away. He ran anyway.
Boscoe had a great life. Slept on the bed, had the run of a huge backyard, ate prescription dog food… and every chance he got he ran away, out into the big exciting world. More than once it occurred to me, as I drove dark roads late at night or signed another check to the pound, that Boscoe was ungrateful. I had given him everything he could possibly need and he left me again and again and again. What a great sermon topic, I thought, on one of those long drives. Christ gives us everything, pays a huge ransom for us, and we keep running away. Perhaps that thought bought Boscoe a little more grace at our house…until he ran away again and my prayer changed from “Please let us find Boscoe” to “Please let Boscoe be happy wherever he is today.”
I love the picture and I love the story. The heart of a child is an awesome thing to behold.
Thanks for sharing this, Mike.
Dee
When we lived in the Metroplex kids were always letting our new puppy out the gate. Sad, but we started locking all our gates from then on with a padlock and it really makes a big difference on keeping people out of our yard or silly kids pulling a senseless trick.
I love this story. To this day I think we have Max because of the prayers of a 5 year old named Landon Sheets. Geoff and I had nearly nothing to do with it.
May I just say that if you have to lose a dog, doing so in Abilene is the very best place. There are more animal lovers here than anywhere I’ve ever lived. After our elderly, deaf and almost blind dog got out of the back yard soon after we moved back here, we put up signs and continued to drive the neighborhood. Put a free ad in the paper. The day the ad came out we got a call from a lady who had found our dog and was waiting for the ad to appear. (??!!) We took down the signs but got calls for days after that from complete strangers who just wanted to know if we’d found our dog because they were worried about him. Amazing. . .
Ahh, foder for a sermon for another day. God certainly listens to those who are close to his heart, and Children are certainly that.
Great story!
Adorable! I absolutely love the picture.
There is a 2 year old at church that includes me in her prayers everyday. When she first started including me you couldn’t understand anything she said in her prayers except for my name and her Aunt’s name. I absolutely love this and I can’t even begin to tell you the changes to my heart and service to God over the past year. I am certain it is because a toddler remembers me in her prayers.
Mike,
Thanks for sharing this sweet story about our daughter - your niece. I have to admit that when she wrote the prayer card out on Sunday I was fearful that Joshua would NOT be found…Now I had TWO reasons for his return…we wanted Joshua back and I wanted her prayer request to be answered!! So I also began praying for the dog’s return. I’m not sure I would have thought to do that without her example - we do learn from our children. I have to admit that reading your blog yesterday and seeing her picture brought tears to my eyes and I spent yesterday telling everyone to read your blog!
Thanks for being a great Uncle to our kids!
We had a dog that we felt the same way about - when she ran away, we looked half heartedly… but at prayer time every night, I was really in a bind when my girls (age 6 & 7) asked me to please pray that she would come back. I prayed like this “Lord, the girls sure want that dog to come back.” How’s that for a half-hearted prayer?! She didn’t come back…
The lost dog poster is a “keeper”, by the way. That is precious.
Have you ever prayed for a bird family? I have, and seen it answered! Short version is four baby birds were knocked out of their nest that was actually in a small tree on our back yard covered patio. A strong wind had blown the tree over. We found three babies and with rubber gloves put them back in their nest. The mother continued to feed them. The lost little one showed up two days later on our front porch where we put him back in the nest and mother again fed him also. They left the nest within a 10 day period but continued hanging around the yard for a long time learning to fly and eat on their own. This is just a very small part of the story but I learned God truly knows everything by its name and He hears our prayers. I have no doubt!
I realize this is a very old thread, but just had to respond since I just saw it. When my daughter was five she spent considerable time in a children’s hospital on the major illness floor. Most of the other children had cancer and several she got to know well died while she was there or shortly after we left. Then one of her gerbils died and then the other sickened. She prayed for each and more fervently for the second, but he died too. She had prayed and prayed for her own healing only to have major surgery and still have a major problem afterward. I was pretty frustrated with God because I kept warning Him that I was sure that the Enemy of her soul would remind her when she became a teen that God did not answer her prayers and would cause doubt.
One day about a year after her surgery we left the house to run a short errand. We found a bird that had flown into our window. Some of its innards were lying outside its mouth and blood and guts had come from the other end. (Sorry to be so blunt) Obviously it was a goner, but Michelle insisted that we pray that the bird be healed. I did so with little faith, but to my amazement and her satisfaction, when we returned from the errand, the bird was sitting on a small tree near the door rocking back and forth rather dazedly, but obviously still alive. He sees the sparrow’s fall and He sees the child’s need for renewed faith.
Fast forward. Indeed when Michelle was a teen, she went through a time of rebellion, but over and over the Father brought her back. She chose a Christian college of her own volition, met her now husband the first night and is now the mother of our first grandchild. All are faithful in the Lord and involved in church. Indeed He is GOOD!
Rhoda