Tuesday at Two: Why I Believe In Miracles

I have a maltipoo named Lily. 
Lily was born with a bad heart. A day after I got her, I noticed that she was breathing funny. I knew something was not right inside her tiny 3 pound body so I took her to the veterinarian. The vet then proceeded to give me the sobering news that if I wanted Lily to live, she would need to have heart surgery as soon as possible.

I was devastated.
Lily was like my child and I was helpless.

I remember driving to my house and asking God why He would give me Lily if she was going to die.
I didn’t have any money saved up for heart surgery, especially heart surgery for a puppy. I was fresh out of college and barely making enough to pay my Visa bill.
I tried countless other vets in the St. Louis area in the next two days. Not one of them gave me the news I was hoping for.
I know it’s just an animal but I had fallen in love.
Thousands of dollars wasn’t going to magically appear so I decided to love Lily and give her the best life possible without the surgery.

Then something amazing and miraculous happened.

It was Christmas Eve morning and my brother was home for the holidays. He ran into my room and said, “you have a phone call”.

It was the first vet I had seen on the other line. “Amy, there is a lady in Illinois who wants to pay for Lily’s surgery”

It was better than my best dreams.

I was shocked. What? Why? How?

A TV station in St. Louis did a special interest story on Lily because I got her through the internet. Turns out I did everything wrong when buying her. I didn’t see  Lily’s mom and or where she lived.  In fact, my parents met the seller at Cracker Barrel, still not seeing the breeder.  Turns out the lady who sold me her was a broker for a puppy mill.  This makes perfect sense why Lily wasn’t even the puppy I had picked out from the internet in the first place.
Since it was almost Christmas time and a lot of parents were buying puppies online for their children. They did the story to show what you need to know before buying a puppy online.

Faye White. There aren’t enough words to describe how this older lady changed my life.

Faye White never watched the Fox station but for some odd reason, she switched the channel one night. She saw Lily and me on a TV show I had done and knew she had to do something.
Faye was my fairy godmother but more than that she was my best friend. She may have been in her 80’s but she was my favorite person in the world.
She had lived in Germany and Switzerland and many other places. She lived extravagantly. She was a St. Louis socialite and lived her life with no reservations. But there was much more to her.
She wasn’t the sweet old lady who bakes you cookies and gives you milk. The first time I met her she offered me beer and wine.
She drove a white corvette with the license plate “Faye29”.
Faye didn’t have any brothers and sisters. Her mother and husband had died a year before she saw me on the tv. She later told me it was the first time in a long time that she felt hope.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Faye needed me as much as I needed her.

I would later go on to visit  Faye about every two to three weeks after Lily’s surgery. I loved hearing Faye talk about her life. She wanted to be a pilot but had just missed the cut off for females to work in the aviation field. She had been married 3 times, her last husband was a “son of a *****”. (Her words, not mine)
She loved to smoke and fed raccoons twinkies in her yard every day. She had pictures of all her dogs on her family room wall.

My fondest memories of St. Louis involve Faye.

 She was a breast cancer survivor and felt the pains of never being able to have children.
She didn’t like pictures and hated looking in the mirror because her reflection was not how she saw herself.
She had incredible fashion taste and only bought clothes from magazines.
She bought Christmas presents for my whole family, mom, dad, brother, sister in law and even my mom’s dad. She didn’t know all of them but they were important to her.
Getting her a Christmas present was horrible because she literally had EVERYTHING. I once got her a sweater and I told her I had no idea what to get her. Her response was always the same “It’s something”.
When she started to get sick, I always asked her when she thought she would feel better. Her response was always “Tuesday at Two”.(If I ever have the chance to name anything, I am naming it, Tuesday at Two.)

I knew everything about her.  

She grew up dirt poor, wearing the same shoes all year round.
She told me to break up with guys because they weren’t good for me. She told me not to move to California. She told me not to go back to school for Fashion Merchandise. She wasn’t afraid to tell me the truth.

 There weren’t many people at her funeral. My mom and I were the only non relatives. It felt sort of like in the movie Gatsby, I expected a huge celebration instead of being able to count the attendees on both of my hands.

But then her cousin told me that she didn’t let many people in.

I was one of the lucky ones.

When I went to Mercy Ministries she was one of the two people that I wrote a letter to, explaining why I was going. She knew nothing about the eating disorder and when she found out about it later, she told my mom that she started talking to God again.

She needed a family and she became part of mine.

I continued this relationship with Faye for the next 5 years.
What started as a sick puppy turned into one of the most deep and transforming relationships I have and will ever have with anyone. I learned more from Faye than any college professor or pastor will ever teach me. God put Faye in my life and I in hers.

Faye passed away the winter before I moved to Nashville. Whenever I am tempted to give up on my dreams and settle for average, I think of Faye.

Do you ever question what God is doing in your life?
Are you confused with why it would appear that you got the short end of the stick?

I was reminded of this story when I was reading about Joseph.

Joseph ended up being sold into slavery by his brothers. He was later accused of a rape he didn’t commit. He ended up in prison and was forgotten.

I’m sure Joseph was tempted to be upset with God many times.

He didn’t do anything wrong but found himself in jail.
He didn’t know that God was about to do a miracle through his life.
And that is exactly what God did.

I think life doesn’t make sense most of the time. Bad things happen to good people.

And we think God doesn’t care?

Many times we never are able to see how everything is connected in our lives. The good, the bad, it all just seems like a mess.
But sometimes, God lets us in and shows us His plan.
That was the story of Faye and Lily.

God made a miracle out of my life and Faye’s life all through a tiny 3 pound puppy with a bad heart.
The storm doesn’t make sense while you are in it but when the clouds disappear, you sometimes get a chance to see a beautiful sunset.

God used me to help Faye find her faith again.

God used Faye to help me keep Lily alive.
God used a puppy with a bad heart to change the lives of two people forever.

It may not make sense, but God is writing your story. It may not turn out like we hope or look like we planned. The beginning and middle might not be the best but the ending is beautiful.

Trust Him in the chaos. Trust Him with the questions. Trust Him in the mess.