I paced around the stores asking God to show me a family to help. It was a few days before Christmas, and I was hoping to recognize a family in financial need that I could bless with food or toys. “Please God, lead me to someone,” I prayed to myself. “Show me exactly the right people.” And so it was with disappointment that I left the last store of my shopping spree, not having sensed the Holy Spirit show me anyone for which to buy anything.
I started home in my car and approached a familiar three-way intersection. Just as I began to apply my brakes to stop at the sign, I watched a blue truck ease out of a stop directly opposite me in the intersection, coming toward me. Running beside the large, shiny pick-up truck was a cute dog, a beagle. The driver could not have possibly seen the dog running right alongside the passenger side front wheel, because the truck was so high from the ground.
As the dog continued running near the truck, I whispered to myself, “Get away, little dog. Move away.” My words were to no avail. As the truck sped up to go through the intersection, the dog ran directly under the vehicle and was run over. Every second of this horrific event unfolded before my eyes. When the dog was hit, I screamed. Immediately, I knew I had to stop, though I had no idea what I could do or how I would handle this dog that had been crushed through the middle.
I pulled over into a driveway as the dog writhed in pain in the middle of the road. A man raced to the dog and covered him with his coat. I stood with the man who gently put his hand on the dog and explained through tears and anger, “I am the dog’s owner. I saw him running by the truck, and I jumped out of my car to try to stop him, but it was too late.” The man cried as his pet continued to struggle.
A stranger threw a blanket toward us, and the dog’s owner wrapped it around the poor beagle and carried the animal to my car. He looked at someone else and said, “I don’t know whose car this is, but I want to lay my dog here.” I told him it was mine and he could surely let his pet rest on my trunk. So He did.
Within a few minutes, the dog stopped tossing and died. Right there on the trunk of my car, the beagle perished. Soon, the dog owner’s wife and step-son made their way to the scene, and the woman began to sob uncontrollably. As I put my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her, she came to reveal a sad fact. At the moment of their dog’s accident, the family was on their way to the hospital to pick up her mother, who was coming home to die of cancer after a long battle. Unbelievable. They witnessed the death of their pet on the way to begin the journey of imminent death of a beloved family member. On top of all this, the elderly gentleman who was driving the truck that hit the dog arrived at the scene, unable to stop apologizing or hold back tears. He was obviously filled with grief about the accident, certainly wishing he could somehow “undo” what had happened.
As I stood in the driveway on this cold, bleak winter day with a dead dog on my trunk whose blood now began to drip down my tail light and a sobbing stranger at my side whose mother was dying, my heart came into focus. I realized God had answered my prayer and shown me a family – and a whole lot more.
We don’t really have to search for hurt; it’s everywhere. Every person we pass in the store is carrying some pain and facing some difficulty. No one escapes the heartbreak of sin’s effects. We drive down the road and meet death and suffering at the intersection, so to speak. The trunk of a car that usually bears the weight of groceries or shopping bags or picnic supplies can also bear the weight of destruction and death. No person, no animal, and no thing evades the clutches of sin’s curse. The devastation is real; do not deny the strength and ugliness of the results of rebellion against God. Know it. Then hate it. Fight against sinfulness wherever you find it. Begin in your own heart. Determine to do battle with sin and its icy cold grasp, for it is the source of all this misery.
That evening, as my husband and I packed up freshly baked cookies, a fruit basket, and a devotional book for the hurting family I had just met hours ago; I asked the Holy Spirit to deliver hope. When we arrived at the home, we were invited in for a few minutes by the family that was definitely shocked to see me again. I expressed my sympathy about the dog and my prayers for their mother who was now already at the house receiving hospice. I just wanted to take a taste of the kindness – the grace – of Jesus to that family. Perhaps the power of sin would be broken in one more little sphere of this world.
Later that evening, my own uncle succumbed to his battle with cancer. I sat with my extended family around his body and once again pondered the agony of the last enemy that Jesus will one day conquer – death. How hideous evil is. How gruesome its fallout.
As I went to sleep that night, I could not get my family, the dog, or the other family out of my head. But I realized that – as Christians – we all need reminded of the ultimate battle that is taking place. In a dark world, we must be shining the light of the hope of ultimate redemption. When I had taken a bucket of soapy water and flushed the remaining dog blood out of my taillight that afternoon, I was reminded of the truest sacrifice of all time – the blood of Jesus Christ. What blood we now see shed as a result of sin is really nothing compared to the blood of the sinless God-Man once dripping from the Cross as the cure for sin.
This cosmic conflict isn’t a game; this is real. Everything is at stake. Death and suffering have come to all because of sin. There is a real problem; there is a real answer. Jesus saves. Jesus delivers a hope that darkness cannot steal from us.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. – I John 5:19-20 (ESV)
