Hello guys, remember the story I wrote last month about my puppy Gaby? God brought an amazing ending to the story in October.

Gaby passed away on 10/2, and the following week was a disaster for me. Since I was broken inside, and I felt that my sadness and anger were driving myself far away from God. Although I tried to use Bible verses to encourage myself at first, I failed eventually. I began to question God and blamed him for letting this happen. After hearing no response from him, I became more and more angry, and I just couldn’t calm myself down to focus on other things in my life. That was really a terrible week when I look back. I thought my faith is strong, but this experience really taught me a lesson.

On 10/8, I asked the breeder again if there is any further news about why Gaby died. She answered that there are no obvious signs of damages to any part of Gaby’s vital organs. So one highly possible explanation is that Gaby’s immune system was not strong enough to survive the debug process which every puppy needs to go through, and it’s really a very rare instance yet it still happened. After reading her message, I just want to go to the park with my wife Alex to look at the scenes and not sinking in my own thoughts and emotions.

After we sat down on a chair and enjoyed the great afternoon sunshine, I began to think and understand what the breeder’s message really means. Originally, we planned to pick up the dog on 10/1. But many girls in Alex’s wife group tell her to wait for one more week, so that the puppy can have a better chance to survive after leaving mom. So we pushed our picking date to 10/8. But Gaby passed away on 10/2. What this really means is that, God foresees what’s coming to us, and he uses other people to tell us to delay our pickup. Because he knows that things will get much worse if we pick Gaby up on 10/1 and he passed away the very next day in our home. It will be a huge strike to both of our emotions and financials. To avoid that, God is working behind all of this, yet I have kept questioning his existence and intention through the past whole week.

Once thinking through that, I suddenly felt a deep joy in my heart which I haven’t experienced in the past whole week. And my heart is crystal clear that this true happiness doesn’t come from anything in this world, but is directly from God himself. Because I’m just so grateful and happy that this Almighty God who creates the universe really cares for me. I can clearly feel his love and care. He makes all the wonderful plans, but he chooses to take my emotions and concerns into account while making his plan. God, I thank you so much for doing this, because you could choose not to do so. At the same time, I felt how little faith I am in the past week. When the situation didn’t line up with my plan and expectation, instead of fixing my eyes on him and trusting him, I chose to let and sadness and anger fill my heart. God, I’m sorry for what I did, please forgive me.

You know what, God does things in a very creative way. After we got home from the park, we saw the second message from our breeder, which tells us that since another person has moved his deposit to the next year, there is now a new puppy available for us. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that amazing? We pick up our second puppy Raphael on the very next day, which is 10/9, only one day later than our original plan. If I could see what happens now, I would never act the same as I had done in the past week. But the thing is, we can’t see the future. So it takes faith to fix our eyes on God no matter what’s coming. It takes faith to believe although the situation is tough now, God is with us and he has a wonderful plan for us. It takes faith to believe once we go through the tunnel, there will be the everlasting light there.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders,
let me walk upon the waters,
wherever You would call me;
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander,
and my faith will be made stronger

in the presence of my Savior.