The Puppy

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

This was the text that our pastor spoke on this morning. It was one of those sermons that a person knows was written just for them.

On Tuesday of this week, Justin and I saw a puppy on the street outside Roots & Wings. He was lying in the middle of the road. After nearly being trampled on repeatedly by children playing in the street, he, with great effort, picked himself up, and stumbled over to our cement pad in front of the building. There he lay. I watched from the window, then could not help but go look at the puppy. As I approached and squatted next to him, he did not rouse. He did not so much as open his eyes that were oozing yellow puss. His breath was wheezy, like a broken squeaky toy. He lacked the round tummy of a healthy puppy his age, and the skin sagged on his body, like there was not enough of him to fill it out. He smelt of rotting skin, and his skin was indeed rotting, as what was later described as an extremely severe case of mange ravaged his tiny body. Big patches of skin turned brown peeled from every part of him, taking his fur with it. The infection had started into his muscles, affecting his ability to walk without a strange kind of limp. 

This is not atypical of the dogs that live in the community we work in. It tears at one’s heart daily to see the dogs that roam that neighbourhood.

But somehow he was different. He was only a month old, laying, and waiting to die.

So we took him home.

Should we have? Were we stealing someone’s puppy? Shouldn’t we concentrate on more important things? I’ll let you answer those questions for yourself. As for me and my husband, we felt that watching that puppy suffer and die without giving him a chance at life was wrong.

“Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”

We don’t talk about it a whole lot in church, but God cares about animals. He made the earth— the animals—and he said that it was very good. The Bible is full of verses about God’s care for creation, if you just look. And I think that God cared about that puppy, because he made him.

We fed him, and gave him water. He perked up almost instantly. His tiny tail began to wag every time we approached his make-shift cardboard home. We took him to the local dog shelter (where we picked up our Inka), which nurses dogs back to health before putting them up for adoption. They were literally full to the building’s capacity, so we agreed to house him until there would be room for him.

We didn’t name him, because we didn’t want to get attached to him.

We diligently cared for The Puppy, waking up in the middle of the night to give him his medicine. We gave him all the special food and water he was prescribed. We treated his eyes so the puss stopped, and he could see again. We dry-bathed him regularly. We laundered the towels he soiled daily.

We began to hope.

Early yesterday morning, The Puppy was vomiting blood. His breath came irregularly, and his attempts at groaning were like little whispers caught in his throat. I held him for hours, watching his back rise and fall, expecting each breath to be his last. Eventually, it was late enough in the morning that the local vets were beginning to open. We took him as soon as we could, mostly expecting to have to put him down.

The vet gave him a shot, and some medicine. It seemed to work. He stopped vomiting, and his breathing became more regular. Although he was clearly extremely weak, things seemed hopeful again.

We began to hope. Again.

We went to go get groceries. The Puppy was gone by the time we got back.

It’s hard to explain how this has affected me. I don’t think I’ll try to explain it. In some ways, I don’t even understand it. We had him for such a short time, and the whole while we’d qualify each comment regarding him with, “if he makes it.” We knew his chances were slim. But The Puppy has affected my heart in a way that I think goes beyond what the initial situation suggests, in a way that doesn't really make sense.

Life seems to be dealing blows from all directions lately. Sometimes it feels like I’ve just barely made it to my feet again before another is handed to me. As I lay winded on the ground, I’m left wondering how I’m going to get up to face the next one. This one left me reeling. Feeling beaten and bruised, I didn’t feel like I could find the strength to keep trying.

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

There are a lot of things out of my control. I don’t understand them, and they hurt a heck of a lot. The pastor said today that Christians face suffering and difficult times because it makes their faith strong. He said that when things get to be too much for us, we need to leave them in God’s hands, and rest in him.

And that means me too.   

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”