Cairn terriers are compact, confident, animated, little dogs. 

I live with two. Ella, our first cairn, is 16 years old. She’s spry, despite losing much of her hearing, sight, and sense of smell. We added our second cairn a few years ago, an answer to our son’s plea for a puppy.

Kit is named after a baby fox, and all connotations apply. This sweet boy is the stereotypical second child.

Ella is a cottony, ethereal wheaten. Kit is more brindled silver-black with tiger stripes. Ella cooperates. Kit protests. Ella comes back to me. Kit is a flight risk.

I can see Ella in the dark. I can see Ella anywhere. Even in snow where her body blends into the icy white, her black eyes and nose stand out like coal on a snowman’s face.

I’m used to Ella, to seeing her. Kit is not Ella. Kit vanishes in the dark. We keep him on lead.

Really, we do.

That doesn’t always work.

One evening just shy of Kit’s first birthday, I returned from a walk with the dogs. I carried the potty bag to the trash and, knowing she would stay, let go of Ella’s leash to open the bin. Only it wasn’t Ella’s leash.

The second Kit felt the slack in his lead, he bolted forward. A few quick steps, his legs became sure of the ground beneath him, and he shot clean away.

“Kit!” I screamed and took off running. “Kit, come!”

He ran downhill behind the house and joyfully flew across the neighbor’s backyard. I ran after him, the heavy sun plummeting through the evening sky.

“Kit, come back!”

One, two, three yards. Kit zoomed ahead, leash in tow. Four, five, six. I trailed a yard or so back. My legs and lungs ached. Along the way I started to cry.

“Kit, stop!”

And I started to pray. Out loud. Loudly. While running.

“Jesus, please help me!”

Seven yards, eight yards. Kit’s figure blurred as darkness fell—a tiny, hairy wisp speeding through the grass. A ball zipping over the fence.

A bank of bushes bordered the far edge of the ninth and final yard. Headlights from the road beyond flashed through the leaves. Kit would reach the road first and, if he made it across alive, disappear into the forest on the other side.

“KIT! LORD! HELP!”

The small dog continued at full speed. I would not catch him. There was no use. In one great, panting exhale, I let my legs go and collapsed on the dewy grass of the eighth yard.

Kit seemed to sense he was no longer being pursued. He stopped to look. I sat dead still, trying not to signal another chase.

Then Kit turned and casually trotted back to me.

He kicked up to my side as if nothing had happened. I took his leash and walked him back to our house in the dark. Ella was waiting where we’d left her. All I could think of was how much we needed a fence.

This could have ended differently. You could be reading Kit’s eulogy.

So what’s the answer? Run and pray loudly? Stop and be still? Let go and let God?

Sometimes in this life, things get away from me.

I can do everything right, or at least nothing terribly wrong, and still things start up and rush away and won’t come home.

I can run, but I can’t get ahead of them or catch them. I can love them dearly, but I can’t woo them back. Some go suddenly. Others slip away inch by painful inch. My heart breaks as I watch them disappear.

It’s in those times of helplessness, when there is absolutely nothing I can do, that I am starkly reminded of all there really is. All I have, all any of us have, is a God who loves and stays and doesn’t change or leave.

He is here. Always. Regardless of what I do or lose or chase or waste or win.

Will I trust Him no matter what happens? Will you?

* * *

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3 NIV

God, Help Me by Plumb.

How has God shown you He is here for you?