Lexi's Miracle

On Sunday morning, I came out of the bedroom and found, on our living room floor, my pin cushion, with all the pins scattered around it.

Instant panic.

How many places in a dog's digestive tract can a pin get stuck? A lot. How much damage can it do? A lot. I didn't see Lexi in the room, and I was scared to call her to me in case she didn't come. In case she was already in pain, had suffered through the night, or had died.

Finally I was brave enough to look for her. She was sleeping behind the love seat. She woke up and was as energetic as always. I picked up all the pins on the floor and tried to figure out if there were any less than there had been the day before. I couldn't tell. Some of the heads of the pins had been chewed on.

I went in and woke Jordan up and briefed him on the situation. He hopped out of bed immediately. I was in tears. I didn't know what to do. So we said a prayer. Jordan is iffy on whether or not you can give a dog a blessing, so we sat down on the floor with Lexi and prayed for her. Well, I tried to pray anyway. I was crying through most of it.

We tried to decide what to do. We knew it would be really expensive to take her into the vet, since she would need an x-ray and it was an after hours call. Initially we decided to wait until Monday to take her in. Then Lexi started working her magic on Jordan. She kept jumping on him and she basically wouldn't leave him alone. It was really interesting. Finally he said, "Fine. I'll call the vet." We called and she told us to meet her in 45 minutes.

Of course we got there early. On the way over I kept thinking, okay, how much are we going to pay for surgery? Because if the x-ray showed any pins, we knew that's what would be happening. I was panicking. I couldn't lose Lexi. She's been my constant companion. She comforts me and cheers me with her playfulness. I know she was sent to me for a purpose during this difficult time in my life.

Our vet did a quick exam on her and then pulled her into the back for the x-ray. I heard her crying as they strapped her down and it broke my heart. It felt like it took forever for the vet to come back. I said, "Do you think it's bad because it's taking so long?" Jordan said no, but later he told me he was thinking the same thing but didn't want to worry me.

Lexi came back in the room and hid between Jordan's legs. I don't think she wanted to go with the vet any more. The vet came back an eternity later (okay, it was probably like ten minutes) and told us the good news--Lexi hadn't eaten any pins. The vet was very surprised--she said, "I saw this as being a very bad day for the three of you. I thought we were going to have to open her up and find the pins."

I was so happy. Our prayers were answered. Heavenly Father does listen. He does not give us more than we can handle, and he knew I could not handle that. Apparently he knows I can handle a lot, but not losing my comfort dog.

Because, really, who could stand to lose this?

Sometimes prayers for miracles are answered immediately, like our prayer for Lexi. And sometimes they take years to be answered. It's really, really, impossibly hard to wait for those ones. But when they are answered, and I know they will be, what an amazing, joyous miracle that will be.