God Opens the Door, Literally (Thursday, Oct 26, 2000):

Today was a very busy day for me in terms of working on the GodSpeak Web pages.. we had moved our server and email lists recently, so almost every one of our web pages had to be updated with this new information. I worked on this over 16 hours today, and it is the only thing I was concentrating on all day.

As it turns out, I am also recovering from a stomach flu and was at home today instead of at work. It rained most of the day, so our two dogs have been cooped up in the house all day. It finally stopped raining about sunset. I let the dogs out for a bit and went back upstairs to my computer. I was not thinking, or I would not have allowed them to be outside unsupervised. They recently dug a hole under our fence and can get out into the street. We live on the flat part of one of those mountain roads, so cars come zooming by at about 50 miles per hour. It is not a very safe neighborhood for dogs to be out of the yard. But I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking about my computer.

I was in the middle of something very complex when I felt strongly prompted to go check on the dogs. That type of prompting is often the Lord, so I would normally go do it immediately, no questions asked. But I was not dressed since I was home sick today. I decided I'd take 5 minutes to get past this really complex stuff, then I would throw on some clothes and go outside to check the dogs.

I turned my concentration back to the technical task. About three minutes later, I heard the front door open. I heard the jingle of the license and id tags on the dogs' collars which indicated that the dogs came in the house. My first thought was, "Oh good, Ed's home. I won't have to get dressed and look after the dogs." Then I remembered that it was muddy outside and I went running downstairs to wipe the dog's feet before they tracked mud all over my carpets.

I came barreling down the stairs and to my surprise, the front door was wide open. I was still in my nightee, so I hoped no one would pass by. I went to close the door, and looked out briefly to see if anyone had passed by and seen me. No one was in eyeshot. But Ed's car was not in the driveway. I did not have any time to ponder it, because the dogs were trying to run to the carpet. So I shut the door, grabbed the larger dog and began wiping it's feet with the towel we keep by the door.

As I wiped their feet, I was strongly reminded of the day I had been writing chapter one of my book. At that time, I was upstairs on the computer writing away when God told me to go get my dogs and bring them in the house. That was several weeks ago, before we knew about the hole the dogs dug under the fence. I had immediately gone down and found the dogs in the street. I brought them in and went back upstairs and wrote about the incident in my book, I remembered writing how God told me to go check on my dogs and if I did not do it immediately, the dogs might have come to some harm, because they were in a dangerous situation. I thought to myself, 'gosh, I should not have delayed when God prompted me to check the dogs.' I wondered if the dogs had gotten into the street. I decided to ask Ed if the dogs had been in the street, but it turns out that he was not in the house! I opened the door again and checked to see if his car was anywhere around .. it wasn't.

Then chills ran up and down my spine as I realized that someone had unlocked and opened the front door and let the dogs in.. but the only two people with the key are Ed and myself. And the door was deadbolted. There is no way the dogs could have opened it themselves. I suddenly had this most crazy though my mind. I am not sure it was God or my own imagination, but this is what I heard: "You did not go downstairs when I told you to. The dogs were in great danger. So I sent an angel to get them and put them back in the house."

Peace flooded me, and I was not alarmed about a potential intruder. In fact, if a stranger was in the house, the dogs would be barking wildly. So there could not be an intruder.. at least not a human one! But I could not explain how a locked and deadbolted door came wide open by itself to let the dogs in the house. One idea occurred to me, because my western mind wanted to make sense of this incident. I figured maybe Ed came home, let the dogs in and then immediately left again. So when he got home, I asked him. No, he had not done that. He is unable to offer any theories about how a deadbolted door came wide open on it's own to let the dogs in.

Either we have incredibly smart dogs, who know how to pick a lock and open a door, or there was some sort of divine intervention. Considering what I thought I heard the Lord say to me, I suspect it was the second option!

Isn't it wonderful how God takes care of us, even to the point of looking after the safety of pets we love dearly.

Blessings

- teresa