I understand charity. Charity is seeing people how our Savior sees people; its treating them how He would treat them; it is the pure love of Christ. Faith is believing in something that is true that you can't see, sometimes you can't even describe it, it is a conviction, it usually moves you to action. Keeping the commandments is an act of faith.
Hope has been a concept that I have had a hard time wrapping my brain around. It feels like wishful thinking to me. But it talks about the need for hope all the time in the scriptures, so I have been studying hope, trying to develop that Christ like attribute. So recently when my sister in laws where planning on going to a women's conference and the topic was hope I knew I had to go.
A speaker at the conference talked about the same thing that I had been thinking. She said her friend was talking to her about how she understood charity and faith but didn't get hope (ding, ding), then she explained how inside when her friend was saying this she was thinking hope is the easiest to understand, hope is a given. But not too long after this conversation with her friend she was "given" the opportunity to understand what true hope is all about. She was running for re-election in her city in California, she was the Relief Society President in her ward (the women's organization for our church, which is no small task, making sure families in need are fed, families with newborns have meals, sisters with illnesses are taken care of, Sunday instruction is uplifting, helping people who feel lonely feel loved, provided RELIEF etc.), her husband lost his job, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She suddenly felt the keen need for hope. She needed hope to get out of bed. I began to see what hope was.
Last Saturday our family went on a camp-out, we do this quite often. Our family likes to camp and hike, it is a terrible nights sleep but the kids always get so excited. We brought our dog Luke along, he loves exploring just as much as the kids do. The kids were also excited because their uncle Dan came along for the trip. The night was uneventful, the predicted bad nights sleep occurred. Luke scampered around the camp, came and went. But when he left in early morning he wasn't coming back when we called for him, which is very unusual. He is a very obedient dog. Finally I was getting nervous, so Bella, Olivia and Holman and I, set out to look for him.
I said a prayer in my heart that we would know where to look, I felt impressed to go left down the dirt road. We walked a good quarter of a mile calling his name asking near by campers if they had seen him. No luck, so we headed right, down the road. Still calling his name. On a whim I turned around and looked back and saw him cross the road into the bush. The kids and I started running full speed to catch up to him, again it was odd that he wasn't coming to us. When we finally got to where we saw him disappear into the bush, we called for him to come. When he emerged Bella started to scream that he was bleeding. It was horrible. He wasn't bleeding but his eyes were popped out of their sockets. I told her to run and go get dad and tell him to bring the car, she froze, but Liv started running. Benjamin came without the car, but when he saw me he ran and got the car. He picked Luke up and carried Luke back to camp, so I drove the car back. I moved to the passenger side of the car and held Luke, while Dan and Benjamin jumped into action and packed all our gear up, the kids were chucking things into the car as well. I know they did it real fast, but it felt like eternity (later Benjamin told me that if he would of had a handgun he would of put Luke out of his misery, all we had was a bb gun).
We have had several dogs in our 12 years of marriage, none of them compare to Luke (see earlier post). We brought Luke home almost the same time we brought AJ home from the hospital, AJ loves her dog. When we were waiting to leave, AJ was in her car seat, but not buckled and when she saw Luke on my lap she kept trying to reach her dog, she couldn't tell how ugly he looked all she could see was his black fur and she wanted to be with him. He provides so much love for very little effort.
Waiting for our cell phone to get reception was agonizing but finally we were able to reach Pete and Amy, who we knew would have the Internet at their finger tips, they gave us the numbers to emergency vet clinics. Luke got in right away, who wants to look at that in the waiting room?! Benjamin stayed with Luke and I dropped the kids off with Danny at Grandmas house and went back to Benjamin and Luke. When I got there the doctor was ready to tell us the news. Luke sustained a blunt force trauma to the head, since we were camping near the dirt road and campers were coming and going we think he was hit by a car. He is little and black and it was early morning so we think the driver probably didn't even see him. Now the bill. Just to get Luke through the day so that he could have additional surgery would be anywhere from $1,800 to $ 3,000 dollars! Just to get through the day. On my ride over I thought whatever it takes I want this dog to live, when I heard the bill I started to cry. There is no way I could justify that kind of money when we are still recovering over our failed land adventure. My little pre-school job wouldn't even put a dent in that. The doctor saw my breakdown, plus the dirty overalls I was wearing and had charity for us. She said she would see what she could do, taking out what wasn't absolutely necessary. She came back with a new figure that was way better than the first which would involve Benjamin and I doing a lot of the recovery treatments ourselves. I can't express what a loved animal is to a family, I never understood it till I had this dog, and those of you who have had such an animal get it.
I understand better what hope is. The whole time we were making the long trek back to Tucson after camping I kept praying that he would be saved, I had the HOPE that he would be ok, the TRUST in God that whatever happened would be for the best. My little brain finally made the connection that HOPE and TRUST go hand in hand. Hope is the optimistic attitude that everything will be made right because we have trust that our Savior and our Heavenly Father know who we are and that they are aware of our trials. Faith knows this, but Hope smiles and knows.
Then comes Monday morning October the 25th. The miracles start to pour. Faith(and Hope) precedes the miracle. Luke is recovering so well that it looks like he won't need any additional surgeries! The home treatments that Benjamin and I have to administer are greatly reduced. We were so over joyed and felt so deeply grateful on so many levels. That night when I was going over bills and trying to figure out how we could pay the vet bills along with our other obligations. I logged on to our bank and there was a large sum of money deposited into our account! I know my account, nothing gets past me and no amount of willing has made a deposit appear. Something wonderful had happened. I called the bank the next day and asked them about the mysterious deposit, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a mistake, that some poor fellow had accidentally miss-written his bank account number. The banker put me on hold to see what she could find out. She spoke with the person who received the payment, it was made in cash and it was deliberate and the person wanted to be anonymous. I cried on the phone. I cried telling Benjamin, I cried when I looked at Luke. Who could be that generous?! The amount received is almost the exact amount that is needed for Luke. A true tender mercy, an angel here on earth. It feels so opulent to receive such a gift for an animal, but it was more than that. It gave me HOPE, hope that it is all going to work out, hope that there is awesome people here on earth, hope that when things go bad in life that it doesn't have to stay that way. On our car ride over to the clinic, I thought of people who had lost loved ones and I knew their pain was far greater than mine, so I prayed for them and I prayed for Luke. And I will pray for the kind person(s) who gave so freely, and since it is anonymous I will treat everyone I know as if they were the ones who gave the generous gift. Thank you. Thank you. This will be told and retold in our family as a day of miracles.
