Meet Hunter.

(Sorry the photos are so blurry, He was really excited).

I do not own Hunter. I don’t know him. Then what is he doing in my car? I “rescued” him. He was running down the middle of the road and heading toward a very busy highway. So… I picked him up. In retrospect, I probably should have been more careful. I don’t know this dog. Does he bite? Will he ride okay in my car? He ended up doing fine. I called the number on his tag and called the owner. No answer. I looked at his tag again and got his address. I decided to drive him home. Hunter lives in a big, beautiful home on a hill that has a wall of windows and glass doors facing West so they have a gorgeous view of the Rocky Mountains. I approached the house cautiously and was puzzled because I couldn’t find the front door. WHERE is their front door. The entire front of the house was glass. Were those glass doors that open to a beautiful deck the FRONT door? There is no doorbell. Hmmm. I decided not to approach the house.  I let Hunter out of the car and he ran immediately to the deck and into his dog house. No fence. No front door or doorbell. Nothing to keep Hunter at the house or alert someone at the house that Hunter was home. I called the number again. Still no answer. I left another message and told them I was dropping off their sweet dog… and drove away watching in the rear view mirror to make sure that Hunter didn’t follow me. Mission accomplished.

As I drove home, I thought about the look on Hunter’s face when I first saw him. He was running full-force down the middle of the road with a wide grin and ears flapping in the wind. He was completely free. He was happy. He did NOT need rescuing. But, as I thought about it, Hunter was blissfully ignorant that he was approaching an extremely busy highway crossroad. The encounter would probably abruptly end his happy jaunt… and probably his life.

All of this made me think about my own life. Aren’t we all like this sometimes? We trek along in our life… blissfully ignorant…. not knowing of any danger ahead.

Let me explain ….

Since we moved to the farm, I make a 60 minute round trip to Taylor’s school each morning and evening. We leave at 6:45am (as long as Taylor’s hair and clothing is perfect by that time), drive to school and I pick her up at 6pm after drama rehearsal. To say the least, I am usually just ready to be home on these trips. I time myself and see if I can beat my last time, without speeding, by taking a slightly different route. The other day, I was heading to pick up Tay and got caught by EVERY red light on the way. I was extremely irritated. THEN, the two-lane road that I usually drive was blocked. It was closed. There were two police cars blocking the road and the officers were directing traffic to turn off onto a side road. I didn’t WANT to be on the side road. I want to just go about 3 more blocks so I could get to Tay. I found myself frantically trying to understand where I was in relation to the theater building at the school. I finally arrived at the school 16 minutes late. I ended up having to go almost to the next town to get around the blocked street. I was not happy… in fact I as angry. I HATE being late. AND I had used up more of my precious gasoline that has now become like gold to us. Grrrr….

I found out the next day, that there had been an accident on my usual road and someone lost their life. There was a drunk driver speeding down the road at nearly 70 miles per hour (mostly residential area) and someone, who was not delayed by traffic lights, ended up in the path of this out-of-control car. Then there was the realization that my being delayed by red light might have actually saved my life. It took my breath away. WOW… talk about a change of attitude.  Without getting too preachy… I believe that I was being watched over that day.  I couldn’t get it out of my head that I needed rescuing… but I had NO idea. I was blissfully ignorant. God intervened… and probably saved my life. I am supremely thankful. So, next time you are caught in traffic, or delayed by red lights, or your teenager can’t find the “perfect shoes” and you leave late… remember Hunter. Nothing happens by accident. There is a reason… and the reason just might be that you are being rescued.