“Surely Goodness and Mercy…”

This past December (Dec. 8, 2008) you probably read in the news about 3-year old Jaylynn Thorpe, who wandered away from his Halifax, Virginia home one Friday afternoon and became lost in the woods. Jaylynn was last seen playing with two of the family puppies who were also missing.

To the search team of over 300 members from two states it was a worst case scenario: A search in the dark of night with no clue as to what direction he had gone or how far he might have walked. Overnight the temperatures dropped to 17 degrees.

The search continued into the daylight hours on Saturday with no sign of the boy or either of the puppies. Just as hope was fading that he might not be found before spending another night in the cold, the rescuers came upon him resting comfortably under a tree with the puppies snuggled around him. It turned out that on Jaylynn’s walk, at least part of which he had done in the dark, he had ended up over a mile from his home and even crossed a highway.  

One of the rescue team that found the boy remarked that even as the search team arrived and took charge, “The puppies were watching where he went” and "Where he went, they went." Their job done, the two puppies were still watching carefully that their young master was in good hands.

Later, Jaylynn told his mom the puppies had stayed and kept him warm all through the night. He stayed overnight in the hospital for observation and the next day was back home reunited with his two furry companions. 

I’m sure that Jaylynn’s puppies already have names but I have a suggestion for some new names for them: Goodness and Mercy.

I think that the constant companionship of Jaylynn’s puppies were an earthly example of the heavenly truth that God’s Goodness and Mercy, like Jaylynn’s puppies are our constant companions. Isolation, cold, fear, darkness and danger that life may throw at us are no match for the power of God’s love expressed in his Goodness and Mercy…    

^{PS 23:6} Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Richard Lewis

Pathfinder Church

Riverside, CA