Rescue Part II: Now what?

It's taken almost a month, but we finally found Storm waiting for us when we got home from church. At first I just fed her on the street, then she'd come in the yard to eat but leave again, then she started hanging around if we were home, but today she stayed without us. If she's still here in the morning, I'd say she's finally chosen us as home.

One of my gifts is mercy. I love the transformation from abandoned to belonging and well taken care of. The only problem is, now we have FOUR dogs. And three cats. I've never had seven pets before. Mercy can create a lot of work.

I call her Storm because she reminds me that with Jesus' help, storms pass and healing comes. Raccoon says her full name is Storm Lightning. He and Kitty both have taken Storm on as their favorite.

The vet says she needs an ultrasound to see the cause of the fluid build-up in her abdomen but that most likely she'll die or have to be put down.

She seems happier every day. She was barking at my cats today, much to their disgust, and she even tries to run. She seems to be feeling better, not worse. I don't have the heart to put her down just when she is enjoying doggy life for the first time.

My prayer is that she'll be like Lazarus, our chick who got chewed on by a dog. Raccoon found her just in time, her head in the neighbor dog's mouth. He gave the chick to me, confident I could make it better. The dog had chewed through the skin on her neck, but she wasn't bleeding much. I didn't want to kill her after Raccoon's daring rescue, so I put her in the henhouse, expecting to find her dead in the morning.

Much to our surprise, she was still clucking and has made a full recovery, so I named her Lazarus. I couldn't possibly eat her now so I hope she lays eggs. A pet chicken in my neighborhood would be something of a culture shock to my neighbors.

I have been this way as long as I can remember, highly tuned in to animals and their suffering. As a child I couldn't do anything about it, and I found it embarrassing since I often seemed to be the only one who felt such deep compassion for the animal world. I have long favored the underdog. As a child, I wanted to work with animals, but later I felt that I should focus on people instead since we have souls and our eternal future is in question. That's when I chose working with abandoned children as my life's calling.

But that door has been shut in my life, no orphanage or adoptions, so I'm back to rescuing animals.

There is a little girl down the road from us who needs rescuing too, from what I've heard around the neighborhood. The only problem is, people are much, much more complicated.