Our Own Extremely Special Miracle

“Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep’” (Luke 15:6, NIV).

“Have you seen Hadwin?” Christina asked me. With those words, a very painful trial began. By far, it was the most painful for my daughter Anna. She gave me her permission to share this story with you. Hadwin is her beloved cat. He has been there for her through thick and thin. He has faithfully woken her up from nightmares during her sleep. He has comforted her in moments of deep sorrow. He has meant more to her than words can adequately convey. That day, he disappeared.

Anna hunted for him all over the neighborhood for two weeks. She put up fliers everywhere. She asked every neighbor she could find if they’d seen him. She wept copious amounts of tears. A group of neighborhood children did their best to help. One of them found the corpse of a cat Hadwin’s size and color that had been hit by a car. When he showed it to Anna, she gave up hope. Waves of painful grief ensued. They barely let up, week after week after that.

As soon as Hadwin went missing, I felt Holy Spirit prompting me to believe that he would return. Multiple stories of missing cats coming home came to my attention. One of them was particularly close to home: a high school classmate shared on Facebook of her beloved lost kitty turning up at her door six days after getting lost. Her intense distress evaporated into jubilant relief.

I felt Holy Spirit highlighting her story as a prophetic indicator that this testimony would become ours as well. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10, NKJV). What He has done before prophesies what He will do again!

A few days after Hadwin’s disappearance, we were feeling the strain of his absence keenly. A song popped into my spirit. This is a way that God often communicates with me. Loudly, I began to hear the lyrics in my heart and mind from Kim Walker-Smith, “I still believe! You’re the same yesterday, today, and forever…” The thing is, I hadn’t heard this song in years. This made it all the more noticeable as being from Him. Holy Spirit was insisting that I keep believing He would bring our treasured pet home.

After that, He kept reiterating to me the same message over and over and over again, to the point that I just laughed with joy each new time it happened. Song after song about believing came to my attention. In a million other creative ways that God has of getting His messages through to us, He did. Here’s one of my top favorites, though. I’ve been studying Portuguese on Duolingo. Look at the exercise the app had me do:

I was amazed!

Meanwhile, Anna was dealing with such heartbreak. As Holy Spirit prompted me, I gently encouraged her a few times to entrust Hadwin into Jesus’ hands. Her knee-jerk response each time was an emotional, “I’m not ready!!” She was afraid that she would forget her kitty if she gave him to the Lord in her heart. My loving reassurances to the contrary were of no avail… yet.

A little over three months after he went missing, Anna had a dream. In it, she went to sleep with Hadwin tucked inside her hoodie. When she woke up, he had died. We were trying to get his body away from her, and she was clinging to it, even though it was decomposing.

I had another very gentle, loving conversation with her about it when she shared this with me. We both understood that this was a spiritual parable of how refusing to relinquish him to Jesus was not healthy for her. Entrusting this treasure of hers to Him was going to be key for being able to move forward on her growth and wholeness journey. However, she still didn’t feel ready to do so.

About a week later, I was sitting at my desk. Anna walked into my room… with Hadwin in her arms!! My jaw dropped open. I was up and out of my seat like greased lightning, staring at him as she held him.

“Anna! Did you give him to Jesus??” I asked in amazement.

“Yes,” she answered with a dazed smile.

“When??” was my next question.

“Today. In the afternoon. I had a long quiet time. I realized the moment had come, and I did it,” was her reply.

Just like that, Hadwin walked back into our lives. After a three and a half month absence, he simply showed up at the front door. He came back the very day that Anna released him to Jesus in her heart… just a few hours later.

Which leads me to this question. My friend, is there something close to your heart that Holy Spirit has been gently nudging you to entrust to God? He is so loving, so kind, so faithful, so gentle. He is so worthy of your trust. I want to encourage you, just go ahead and do it. I’m willing to bet on it, you won’t be sorry!

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Have you ever had an experience like this one? If so, how would you describe the impact it had on your walk with the Lord?