Did Jesus Find My Lost Dog?
I didn’t want to admit it, but prayer seemed to work
--
In the summer of 2015, in the wake of a long overdue decision to officially separate from my husband and file for divorce, I drove across the country with my Saint Bernard. The trip was uneventful until I got to Tennessee, where I stayed for the weekend with old friends I’ll call Jenna and Rob. It was here where I lost the dog.
I didn’t personally lose her. Phoebe broke out of a doggie daycare while I sat in an evangelical Christian church outside Nashville, where a rock band played power ballads about “the awesome, almighty father” and hundreds of congregants waved their arms in the air as though reaching out to touch the heavenly spirit. (They’d probably disagree with the “as though” part.) When the service was over, I stepped outside the church and discovered multiple text messages from my husband saying to call him immediately.
“Total disaster,” he said on the phone, nearly breathless. “Phoebe escaped, and they took her collar off. She has no tags. She’s been missing for almost three hours.”
I bolted back inside the church. Jenna and Rob were in the chapel, chatting with some potential partners in a subscription box juice company they wanted to start up.
“Phoebe got loose!” I sputtered. “We have to go!”
They stopped their conversation, and we ran through the parking lot and piled into their Range Rover. The church was on the outskirts of town, surrounded by country roads. Nonetheless, we immediately hit standstill traffic. Every church in town was letting out. It was Sunday rush hour.
“Don’t worry,” Jenna said. “We’re going to find Phoebe.”
I phoned the doggie daycare. It was a rather backwater operation I’ll call Paws ’N Play, the only place open on Sunday. The young woman on duty, who had promised me the dogs were never left unattended, told me that Phoebe appeared to have rammed through a wooden fence and escaped. There had been no sign of her for hours. Apparently they’d removed her collar. What? Why? (“It’s just our policy,” she said.) They’d tried to call me several times but couldn’t get through and so finally called my husband, who, out of sheer habit, I’d put down as an emergency contact. He hadn’t…
