WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????

Mr. Hollywood was sharpening his typing skills last week when he entered this title for a blog post. I know! He’s on fire, right! I just can’t seem to stop him! It seriously may be time for him to get his own blog!

Anyway, I had visions of this snappy, cute little post to match his amazing title, but then last week happened. Leaving us saying,

WHY!!!!????

We were getting ready to go on a little trip. A last hurrah before my ever popular hubby had to head back to work. The boys and I were finishing up some school and Joel was at the doctor’s getting his stitches out.

My youngest son happened to glance out the window (really not by chance since he is my sky gazer during school hours) and he saw the neighbors Great Dane in our yard.  I sent my oldest out to shoo him on home.

I began to wonder what was the matter, since the shooing process seemed to be taking longer than usual. Then my son burst through the door saying there was a black dog in our rabbit barn.  He couldn’t get the dog out, because every time we walked in the barn the dog growled fiercely at him.  I quickly threw on a coat and ran to the barn where I saw a dog crouched under one of the rabbit hutches baring his teeth at me. He growled the sort of growl that makes your skin crawl and your gut roll.

Long story short, the dog eventually came out and we were able to go in.  Sadly it was not a pretty scene.  Our newly bought Mini Rex buck’s (just 4 months old) feet were chewed up severely and he had either a broken hip or a broken back.  Our dear friend Charlie (also a Mini Rex) was completely missing one of her back legs. One of our Californians had a broken back. Others had minor nibbles and missing nails.  When it was all said and done we had to put three of our bunnies down.

There were a lot of WHYS!!!!???? that day.

A lot of anger.  A lot of tears.

And a perfect moment to teach.

That day provided me the opportunity to teach that it is okay to be angry. Even Jesus was angry. But, it is not okay to let our anger harm others or ourselves.

I was able to teach the importance of forgiveness. Even though we were upset over the death and wounds inflicted upon our rabbits, we needed to forgive our neighbors. It wasn’t their intention to harm our livestock.

It provided another opportunity for teaching the importance of being responsible for the animals in our care.

This day was the perfect opportunity for us to shine for Jesus. In all honesty, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do this perfectly at all times through this drama, but thank goodness my kids are good at listening to my apologies (sheepish grin inserted here)!

In the end, our neighbor came down, apologized and offered to pay for our loses.  Joel accepted their apology and thanked them for the offer of money but refused it.  I guess what touched me so much is the fact that our neighbor was profusely sorry and kept mentioning how sorry he was especially after all we had done to help them out recently. You see his wife has MS and his granddaughter (7) who also lives there with her parents has stage 4 cancer.  We have helped out where we can, showing God’s love and praying for them daily.  With the damage to our rabbits, God had provided an awesome opportunity for us to share the Lord Jesus Christ with them. 

Even though that day left us saying WHY, it taught so much! Isn’t that so much like God!