Thank You Lord, for My Dog Anna

by Valerie

I would never be able to thank God enough for the blessing of my wonderful dog, “Anna”. And I’d like to share with you, my family and friends, the special way He brought her into my life!

Going back about a year . . . I used to have a black ewe named “Hope”. Last spring, when it was time for her to have her lambs, she had them pretty early. But God protected my two lambs, S.C. (short for Self Control), and Love. He gave me the joy of having lambs! Although one of them died of bloat, and I sold the other one, I had a lot of fun with them. I especially enjoyed getting to bottle feed them. All this time my ewe, Hope, was very skinny and she was very sick too. Hope never became healthy again, so we had to put her out of her misery. Though it was a very sad time, God let Hope die because He knew that my real heart’s desire was to have a herding dog!

So we began looking on Craig’s List for border collies. But, we soon found out that the border collies’ instinct to herd is so strong that they have the potential to nip at little kids. And since we have two “littles”, we decided we shouldn’t take that chance. So God closed the door on getting a border collie. We then started looking into Australian shepherds. We saw an older male Australian shepherd on Craig’s List. We called the owner and he said that they did not have him anymore.

I’m pretty sure it was that same day that Mommy went to the grocery store and happened to see an ad for a mini Australian shepherd posted on the bulletin board in front of the store. It was a hand-written note with no picture on it. So Mommy ripped off one of the slips with their phone number, and we called the owners as soon as she got home! Since their home was nearby, we ended up going to see her that night. And I fell in love with her! She was the sweetest and most gentle dog I had ever met. Also, during our brief visit with her owners, we learned that they are Christians and that they needed to find a new home for Anna because they were planning to move to California to attend a Bible school there.

But Daddy was away on a business trip, and we knew we should talk with him about her. We also needed some time to pray about it! So that next morning, we called the owners back and told them we would love to have her. We asked when would be a good time to come and get her. They said probably the sooner-the-better as the mom was especially sad to see her go. The mom had rescued her from a breeder where she was being neglected and mishandled in her first few months of life. So she was very attached to her and loved her very much.

When we went to get her, the mom said that she had been praying for six months for just the right family to adopt her. And the Lord brought us along at just the right time and allowed us to be the ones to have her! It was truly a “match made in heaven”!

So my sheep dying, not being able to get that male Australian shepherd, not finding anything else on Craig’s List, and leading us away from a border collie, was all a part of God’s great plan and purpose for me and Anna. What a tremendous blessing it is to have a God that cares this much for all of His people! I could not ask for a more loving God and better dog!