The Least of These

Sometime yesterday, a driver near our house hit a small, young terrier. The impact broke her back, and tossed her into a ditch filled with muddy water from a recent storm.

As I write this, she's clean, dry, and happy, sitting in a crate a few feet away from me. She's watching me now. She says to say, "Hi!"

We found her because of Barbara's sharp eyes. She noticed the mud-colored dog in the mud-colored water, as we were driving back from the train station (she commutes by rail).

Little One still doesn't have a name, but she has a home. She has friends. She is loved. She will have a cart for her back legs.

When all this happened, I thought, boy, God has a weird sense of humor. Yet another dog, and a paralyzed one at that?

And then I felt a sense of profound shame, because humor has nothing to do with this at all. This was a tragedy, and I firmly believe that God guided our steps to bring us to the point where I lifted Little One from the mud, and told her she was safe, forever.God did what he could, with the instruments at hand, to make it work.

We did take her to the vet, and had to tell the vet that we had no money (long story). The vet looked her over, said her back was broken and she was paralyzed, but otherwise she was healthy. He said he really couldn't do anything meaningful for her.

We had no money, and needed none.

Is that part of the miracle? So often we read of people who receive a windfall when they need it, but what of a situation where money becomes superfluous?

I don't know. But I think God's hand has been it work.

Even it's a dog's story, and not my own.