If I’d had another cup of coffee after church, we’d have been too late to see the dog run across the street. If we’d left church a few seconds sooner, we would have hit the dog as it ran under our wheels. But ten seconds made all the difference, and as we drove home, we narrowly missed hitting a beautiful little puppy who ran out into a busy intersection.

Utterly oblivious to the danger, he wandered aimlessly up and down a driveway with no collar, obviously lost, threatening to run back out into the street.

Sometimes people ask me if I believe in fate. I can’t believe in fate if I believe in God. And I believe that God does have a plan for my life but I need to work to align my will with His. And if I do, then chances are, things will work out better with His plan than mine.
And apparently God’s will for me today was going to involve getting out of the car in my high heels and church clothes, rescuing that puppy from certain disaster, sacrificing a perfectly good pair of pantyhose in the process, explaining to our children that somebody was probably very, very sad today and needed to find their little puppy and, no, we can’t keep him.
The afternoon I had planned to spend doing a hundred other things, like writing thank-you notes and cleaning up my desk became a day spent putting up “Dog Found” posters and knocking on doors and driving up and down the street searching for “Dog Lost” posters, and putting an end to every conversation that involved the words “what should we name him?”
Finally, we made the trip to the Humane Society which, in our town, is the Ritz Carlton of Humane Societies and made it much, much easier to hand over little Charlie (okay, okay, I know, but he DOES look kinda like a Charlie…)
Of course, by that time, even my husband said if nobody claims him we’d better start looking for a basket and a bowl and collar and a vet and, well, what can I say? Did God put us there at that intersection today to return a dog to its owner or to become a family for a dog with no owner?
We don’t know the end to this story, but it was a good opportunity today to teach our children that no matter where we find ourselves, it isn’t a fateful roll of the dice. It’s a chance we’re given to choose to do the right thing.
And this time, with God’s help, we’ll have either helped bring about a joyful reunion or we’ll be engraving the word “Charlie” on a little metal heart!
To be continued!
Take care,
Martha