Old Red

My friend Shannon emailed me this week to tell me that their family dog had died. Old Red's story is pretty incredible. Shaun and Shannon got Red when they still lived in Tennessee. The dog made the move with their family to Alabama, and by God's gracious providence, he eventually made the move with them back north to Mississippi. Shannon has given me permission to share this email from January 2nd, 2003.

Hi you guys,

This is a little long, but it really happened to our family and I'm still in awe over it. I couldn't wait to share it with you.

I may or may not have mentioned to you that our dog, Red, ran away about a week before Christmas (approx. Dec. 12). We drove around the neighborhood looking for him, but to no avail. Since he still had not come home by December 20 (the day we had to leave to come home for Christmas), we guessed we wouldn't see him again.

We returned to Mobile Dec. 26, but Red still had not come home. We kept hoping that he'd return, but he didn't. So we had decided that he probably wasn't coming back. The kids and I were sadden by the loss of our dog, so we started thinking about getting a new puppy.

January 1, 2003 (my birthday) we were trying to decide what to do to sort of celebrate the day, when Shaun suggested that we go look for a puppy. I sort of brushed off the idea at first, because I had planned to give Red a couple more weeks to return. But then I decided that it was highly unlikely that he was coming back, so I agreed with my husband and suggested that we pick up a newspaper and check the classified ads for puppies for sale.

We made three phone calls as we were driving around and starting making appointments to see the puppies that were available. There was an ad for Jack Russell Terriers that peaked our interest, so we made a call to go see the puppies. It turned out to be the nearest location to us, (probably 5 miles from our house), so we decided to go there first.

The man who owned the puppies brought them outside for us to see. They were four of the cutest little puppies and we had almost decided that we wanted one of them. Then Seth, our oldest son, mentioned to the man that our dog had run away.

The man asked what the dog looked like, and I described Red to him. He told us that it sounded just like a dog he had picked up that had been hit by a car on Airport Road. He had taken the dog to the emergency vet. He said the dog had been hurt pretty badly, but he thought it had survived. He knew the lady who had taken the dog home, and he told us how to get there. We thanked the man and went to see if by chance the dog was Red.

Indeed, it was! We were so thankful that strangers had been so kind to him.

We were so glad to have Red back, but more than that, it was a great opportunity to share our faith in our Awesome God with our children. It was an opportunity to share how He cares about the things that are important to us, and that He does intervene in our daily lives. He is constantly at work around us.

Think about it. What were the chances that (1) we would decide to go look for puppies that day, and (2) we would pick an ad for Jack Russell Terriors that would take us to the man who transported Red to the emergency vet.

Needless to say we didn't buy a puppy, but we are glad to have our Red home again.

Happy New Year!

Grace & Peace,

Shannon