We Found Her!!! ~ Thanks for Praying! ~ Personal Story
WE FOUND HER!!! For those of you who have no clue what I mean, I posted this on Facebook last night:
I don't usually post things TOTALLY unrelated to saving money here, but I'd really appreciate prayers for my dad's golden retriever puppy who is lost up near the rim (Payson area), pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It's hard to hear your dad choke back tears and say, "It's not like she's a grandchild or anything." I'm going drive up to help find her early tomorrow morning and am praying for a miracle — and would be more grateful than you know, for you to join me in praying. Thanks!
Since I got so many emails and responses on Facebook, I thought I'd tell you the whole story and hope you can celebrate with me! Warning . . . there's not a single bargain that I'm planning on sharing with you and I don't have a succinct writing style. :)
My dad's new puppy jumped out of the window as he was driving on a dirt road in a remote area near Woods Canyon Lake, east of Payson. (He lives in Scottsdale, so nowhere near his home.) His other full grown retriever was there too and he didn't even notice she was missing until two miles from the last stop. :( That was at 9am yesterday. He looked for her until it was dark without success. He was freezing, hoarse, in pain, and discouraged as he left Jo in blizzard-like conditions.
My sister and I (and my two oldest kids) went up this morning to help my dad find little Jo. We had some signs to post and only did a fraction of what we wanted to before my dad called us, "Come on, let's get going!" We quit that job to keep Dad happy. After all, the biggest part of why we were there was to support him, hoping and praying for sweet Jo, but knowing the grim reality that we were surrounded by a bunch of unknowns and plenty of disheartening facts. It was a remote area with wild animals that had reached below freezing last night.
After we finished driving the fifteen to twenty miles on the dirt road, we hiked up and down through snow and mud for hours. We were calling her name, whistling, praying, hoping, pondering what we didn't want to, imagining her running toward us, even laughing at times. I mean, how can it not be funny to have a pile of cut up clothes that your dad dug out of the hamper (underwear and all) to tie on branches near the road, hoping she'd smell the scent? We were also told that it was good for him to rub up against trees to put his scent on them. We told him it had to be naked — with a few more details that I'll spare you. So, even in the midst of the unknown, we chose to laugh. (In all seriousness, thanks for the advice, Vickie. We did use it and finally came clean about the little tree rubbing details we had enhanced.) :)
About 2:30pm, we decided to take a lunch break, back a few miles, so we could also get to cell service and make some calls. Right before we were going to take off, I discovered four messages and made everybody wait while I retrieved them. Those few minutes ended up saving us many more hours of searching. Just as we pulled away, my sister's cell phone rang . . . somebody found Jo and had her about 7 miles from there!! He had found her just before the call. She had survived the night out on her own!
None of us could stop saying that we couldn't believe it. My son said, "I prayed again about ten seconds before the call came." What a great faith builder for him and all of us.
I realize all prayers don't have the happy endings we wish for. Believe me, I know . . . we lost our son a short 37 days after his birth. We had plenty of people praying and pleading for his life. Even after that, I still believe God does hear prayers and really does know what He's doing. He sees the vast maze of life from above and knows where we're going and where we need to be. To Him be the glory!
P.S. We found another lost dog on the way back to see where the guy found Jo . . . another reunion. Amazing!
Glad the granddog is back where he belongs!
What a wonderful story! Glad you guys found your dad's pup.
Prayer has saved the day on more than one occasion in my life, as well.
Great story! She looks just like our Golden puppy! ;o)
So glad your namesake was found! That is truly a miracle with all the things that go bump in the night in the woods. Would love to have had a collar webcam on her. You could make a movie! :o) Good that you guys could all laugh in what was a stressful time. So happy for the happy ending.
Yes, I'd hate for my namesake be lost in the woods! For others reading, my dad combined my middle name with my two sisters' middle names and named her. My name is the first and is what he calls her. Yep . . I'm Juli Jo. Funny because few people call me that. When we were in the hospital with our son who died, all the nurses saw it on my chart and assumed that's what I went by and called me Juli Jo. When it finally hit me that everybody called me that, I didn't have the heart to tell them that wasn't me. I was just plain old Juli. :)
Praise God! Thank you so much for sharing this. What a mighty God we serve and what a great testimony for you to give. I pray that He will continue to give you favor, especially through this site, and those who read your posts will come to know Him better.
It is obvious that your faith has brought you through many heartaches and difficult times.
Yay for you, and yay for your family and especially YAY for your Dad and puppy! YAY for prayer and YAY for God answering it!
So happy this has a happy ending!
Yayyy! So happy for all of you!! I have a friend in Flagstaff that just lost HER dog too, and they found her after a day, so happy happy all over!
Jo is adorable! I'm glad she's alright and back home. :)
Jo is just beautiful and I am so very thrilled you found her and even had some laughs over it : ) And you found another dog also, wow amazing. Your Dad and Jo look very happy to be reunited. Thanks so much for sharing the success story. May many more success stories be shared on this site.