My readers know that I have a special fondness in my heart for dogs, so it should come as no surprise when I tell you that it’s my firm belief that you can tell a lot about people just by watching how they treat animals. Another one of my strong beliefs is that things are not always what they seem and that angels come in many packages. Let me show you what I mean.

Late one Saturday evening, John and his wife Jane were on their way back to their home town where they planned on spending Mother’s Day with their parents. They stopped at a local gas station to get coffee and something to snack on during the final hour and a half of their trip. When they got back inside their car, they noticed a man standing outside in front of the building. They assumed from his appearance that he was a homeless man. His clothes were tattered and worn and it looked like he had gone in and gotten himself something warm to drink. It was a rather cold night and it certainly looked as if the man did not have much money for food.

The next thing they saw was a dog walking up to the front of the building. Being dog lovers, John and Jane noticed that she looked like she was part wolf and part German Shepherd. They could tell she had been feeding puppies. She was also terribly in need of something to eat and both John and Jane felt bad for her, knowing in their mind that if she didn’t eat soon, she and her puppies would not make it.

John and Jane sat there and looked at the dog. They noticed that people walked by and didn’t even pet her, like most people do when they walk by an animal in front of a store. The shepherd may not have been as pretty and clean as most, but she still deserved better. Nevertheless, John and Jane sat, eating their snacks and did not do anything. However, someone else did. The homeless man, who himself looked hungry, went back inside the store. What he did after he came out brought tears to the eyes of both John and Jane. He had gone into the store, and with what little money he may have had, bought a can of dog food and fed that dog. A lot of people that night forgot that animals are God’s creations too. That dog was a parent, and it took a homeless man to show John and Jane as well as all of the others who walked by what they should have done.

It is becoming easier and easier for people in general to ignore others who need our help. We have been taught to distrust stranger and to keep within the safety of our own little piece of the world. Trouble is that as human beings, we will likely all have to rely upon the support of strangers at some time in our life. The homeless man, who himself was treated like an outcast, identified with the plight of the little dog. He felt the need to reach out and do what he could to provide the dog with nourishment so that she could take care of her puppies. Sometimes we need adversity in our own life in order to realize our responsibilities to others. If things are going too well, there is a tendency to put up a defensive wall around our world in order to keep others out. It’s time to remove those walls and allow humanity to thrive once again.

As I leave you this week, I want you to reflect upon the message in the following story about six human beings who found themselves in the black and bitter cold one night. They stood around the fire, each one clutching to a stick of wood, watching the glowing embers slowly dying. The first woman held on to her stick. There was no way she would give up her piece of wood because she noticed that one of the people in the group was black. The next man refused to put his stick on the fire because he noticed that one of the people did not belong to his Church. The third man sat in tattered clothes because he did not want to give up his stick to warm the rich. The rich man sat back and thought of the wealth he had accumulated and how he could keep what he had from the lazy poor people in the group. As the black man watched the fire die away, he saw holding on to his stick as a way of getting revenge on the white people. The last man refused to give up his stick until all the others had given up theirs. When the six people were found dead, many days later, each of them still clutched to their own stick. It was proof positive that they didn’t die from the cold outside, but instead, they died from the cold within.