Encouragement

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Straight From The Cavy's Mouth:

Reality Of The Rescue

If you’re an animal lover, you’ll be with me right from the very beginning. But if animals aren’t your thing, you won’t appreciate the nature of this piece —at least not at first. But if you can discipline yourself and stay with me long enough, I think you’ll find something that speaks to you.

I was fresh out of a writers retreat and was highly inspired to get back to the keyboard after a long drought. This particular early spring Saturday afternoon was spent cleaning my desk, rearranging some books and getting things in working condition for me to jump back into writing again. As afternoon transpired into early evening, I headed out to pick up a few things.

After shopping, as I approached the exit from the plaza onto the main road, the urge to go the long way home came over me. It would take me at least 10 minutes out of my way. I was tired and wanted to get home. I’m glad there was no one behind me, as I idled at the exit and debated with myself. Should I? Of course not. Yes. But why? Just go. So I went.

This way home was definitely the scenic route. I passed acres of split rail fences bordering jade and emerald mingled fields. Rugged, yet prim-looking brick houses hid in the shade of the maples and towering pines along the snake-like road. The aroma of fresh-cut grass lingered in the 60 degree air and tickled my nose.

As I passed a house on my left, I caught a glimpse of a cage sitting out in the front yard. There was a white poster board sign on the front. The only word I managed to decipher was ‘free’. I swerved into a driveway about 3 doors down and headed back towards the house, hoping to mine some treasure I could use to care for my guinea pigs.

As the car door closed behind me, a girl, I’d say 12 or 13, bounded out the front door of the house. We both headed in the same direction...the cage. Huddled inside a hidey house in the cage were 2 guinea pigs. One of them was a light cream color with copper markings around the ears and rear-end. The other was also cream with copper markings around the ears and black encircling both eyes—a tri colored pig. I was so excited when I saw him! But excitement quickly dissipated into disappointing realization. I already have 4 pigs. My landlord knew of 1.

But what would become of these little guys if I didn’t take them? Maybe somebody else would have come along who would love them and care for them. But maybe not. The girl said she’d given them a bath. How long had they been outside? Will they get sick? Maybe they were sick now. Maybe somebody would come along and take them home but not care for them, or sell them to an animal laboratory. All sorts of thoughts went through my head.

About an hour later, I arrived home with a bale of fresh Timothy hay and 2 new men in my life...Nick and Rico.

I fixed up a playpen in my living room to allow the boys to grow acclimated to my home. At first they just huddled in the hidey house together in a corner, but after a carrot or 2, they ventured out to explore. I held them, petted them and cooed softly to them, trying to make their transition easier and to let them know they were loved and cared for. Then a thought came to my mind-- actually several thoughts. This was no accident, no coincidence.

I’d been telling myself for weeks that I wanted to make the pen bigger. And on this particular day, in the middle of the hustle and hassle of other projects, I’d just dropped everything and done it. Just felt like I had to. And by surrendering a quiet, but urgent voice within me, I stumbled across these two big, handsome boys.

My thoughts drifted to God and how he rescued me. But it wasn’t something He just stumbled into. No, He knew all along where I would be and the path He would have to take to save me. He saw the end before the beginning, knowing well beforehand what would be required of Him. And He chose to do it anyway. The Good Shepherd left the 99 in the green pastures of heaven and ventured into the wilderness to save me. And I don’t mean just my initial salvation, either. Seems that no matter what kind of a deep murky pit I’ve dug myself into, God is waiting right there to reach in and pull me out again. No matter how high of a cliff I fall from, His arms catch me and deliver back onto safe ground. When it appears that through sin or ignorance I’ve truly destroyed what was good in my life, my Jesus is there building a new foundation and patching up the hole. In His divine way, He really does make all things new.

I thought about John chapter 4 and the story of the woman at the well. No good Jew would travel through Samaria. It was a common practice to journey east of the Jordan River when traveling from Galilee into Judea or vice versa. But the text in John says Jesus had to go through Samaria. HAD to go. The text doesn’t say, but when you finish the story you know why. This was no coincidence, no accident. In divine forethought, providence, planning and predetermined will, Jesus met the woman at the well, knowing precisely the time she would arrive and knowing exactly when He would need to be there to meet her. Before she knew Him, He loved her. And unbeknownst to his apostles, who wouldn’t have understood, whom He also had pre-occupied with other business, He ventured on a mission to save this woman, and rescue her from the consequences and stigma of her own sinful choices. He became, most likely, her only friend besides the man she was living with—a man who wouldn’t even marry her. What if he had decided to bypass Samaria and do the socially acceptable thing in keeping with customs of the day? But He cared that someone needed to be saved—rescued, redeemed, restored. He had to go through Samaria or he would have missed his divine appointment and the woman would have remained lost.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians reminds me that before the foundation of the world God chose those who were His, and loved them, just because He wanted to. John’s Revelation tells me of a lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. Before God ever spoke light into the darkness of His physical creation, He had already determined to send the His Light into the world to rescue me-His creation, from eternal darkness.

After keeping the boys in a kind of quarantine for about a week to make sure they wouldn’t present any sickness to the others, I finally introduced them into the pen with my girls, a see-through divider separating them. The boys are now officially part of the family. I couldn’t turn my back on them. And if there are problems with them being here, I suppose I’ll just have to deal with it as the need arises.

I hope that from time to time the presence of my 2 big handsome boys will serve as a reminder that once I was huddled in a hidey house—cold, afraid, abandoned--and someone gave up everything and traveled an unimaginable distance to rescue me. And His rescuing is just like His love—unfailing and never ending.

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