Personal Journey

Colleen Maile: The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

God’s Dog: An Answer to Long-Forgotten Prayer

By Colleen Maile

I spent my childhood in the woodsy outskirts of a blue-collar steel town where education was highly valued as a ticket to anyplace else. It was a brutally cold community in northern Minnesota—and the general mood reflected the weather. As the lonely, only child of unhappy parents, I loved school and hated coming home. My mom suffered from severe emotional problems, sometimes staying in her room for days on end. My dad worked swing shifts at the plant—one week of days, one week of nights, one week of four-to-twelve. There wasn’t much family life, although I knew my dad loved me dearly. He was especially committed to my schooling. When I was selected to go to a gifted and talented program thirty miles from home my dad would make the long drive on rural roads, even if he’d just come off a midnight shift. During those rides he never missed an opportunity to encourage and counsel me. He was a wise and compassionate man who always reminded me that my mother’s problems—her violent fits of rage and severe depressions—had nothing to do with me.

I wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t easy. Every kid wants their parents’ approval. Yet, no matter what I did I couldn’t pull my mom out of those dark places. My confidence in my father’s words was further diminished by one of the greatest conflicts in my young life—religion.

My mother was the daughter of Catholic immigrants. My father came from a Protestant mish-mash, a Lutheran father and a Baptist mother. His own nomadic upbringing left little room for church. He’d never been baptized. His status as a “nothing” in the eyes of God was among my mother’s favorite angry themes. She rarely attended church but my dad had promised to raise me as a Catholic, and so I was. He regularly drove me to Mass, always gave me a dollar for the collection plate and made sure I prepared for the sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation. Still, he rarely ventured inside and had no interest in becoming a Catholic. I knew from my catechism classes that this damned him to an eternal burning lake of fire. There was one true church and my beloved daddy’s refusal to convert meant there was no room for him in heaven. The thought of his banishment from the presence of saints and angels caused me to cry myself to sleep many a night.

When I was 14, and an accelerated sophomore in high school, my parents saw an opportunity to leave the steel mill behind and jumped. We moved to South Florida. I reeled with shock. To minimize the cultural shift I was enrolled in a Catholic girls’ school. More information about God and His demands spawned more Catholic commitment on my part. I so wanted to do the right thing, to avoid temptation and to draw close to God. I would spend days pursuing vows of silence, fasting, reading the lives of saints, doing all I could to be good. I always hoped that if I did enough stuff God would like me so much he’d fix my mom, and let my dad into heaven.

That only lasted a year. When my hormones kicked in, my religion went out the window. By the time I was a 17-year-old college freshman I’d officially “broken up with Jesus.” The rules were too much, and I had no idea of who God was or how he really felt about me.

My entire collegiate career was spent in the southern U.S.— the Bible Belt if you will. No on ever told me about Jesus. No Campus Crusaders ever knocked on my door, or handed me a tract. Where were they? Maybe God knew my response would have been profane.

Life was going along as it was supposed to. I’d started dating an up-and-comer my sophomore year. We stayed together all through college, and beyond—law school for him and grad’ school for me. Our highly lucrative future was cut short when he and three friends went fishing in a little cove and never returned. The ocean search went on for weeks. My nightmares lasted much longer.

Unresolved death is tough—especially without God. Most of the next year remains a blur of hard-partying and destructive behavior. The next Christmas I visited family in Colorado and decided to stay. Within six months I’d met and married Tom Maile and all seemed well in the world. It was a fantasy romance and an uneasy marriage. Two years in, I was expecting our first baby and knew something was missing. I didn’t know anything about raising a child. I needed divine guidance. Terrified, I prayed, “God if you’re real show me who you really are.” The answer came quickly and repeatedly. Everyone from our Realtor to the refrigerator repairman shared the need to accept Jesus as the only solution to our sins with us. We had to be born again, they said. I thought, “Oh, no, anything but that. Mormons and Methodists both seemed more plausible with their emphasis on good living and good works. I couldn’t get my head around being one of those crazy Tammy Fay Baker “born-again” people. Then President Jimmy Carter gave an interview sharing his faith and I realized you didn’t have to assassinate your brain to accept Jesus. The leader of the free world was one of them. I could be too.

Shortly thereafter we found ourselves among the little group of young married people that first attended Boise’s Calvary Chapel. The church became our family, just as Jesus said it should. I was content with its small numbers and never wanted it to grow. That was not Christ’s way. But I had a lot of lessons to learn—including how to forgive my mom and expand my own capacity to love.

As I allowed the Holy Spirit to work out the details of God’s will for my life, I still longed for my dad’s salvation. I dragged him to church every time he visited. He didn’t like it. The music was too loud, the message too hip. I gave him a Bible. He carried it like a good luck charm each time he boarded a plane, but rarely opened it. I took some comfort in the fact that he watched Billy Graham on TV and hoped that those messages sunk in. After a while I didn’t even pray for him anymore. I told myself that just maybe his good nature would carry him to glory, even though I knew that wouldn’t cut it from a Biblical perspective.

Mostly I just didn’t want to think about it. I had my new life. God blessed me with three great kids, a bounty of friends and provided incredible opportunities to touch other lives with His love. I grew up with Calvary Boise, teaching Sunday School, working in the nursery, writing for various publications and leading ladies’ Bible studies.

My parents eventually divorced. Dad visited at least twice and year and stayed a month or more each time. Mom grew more withdrawn and our relationship dwindled to infrequent phone calls. Then in what seemed like a flash, they were both old and sick and in need of care. They moved to Idaho within a month of each other and our family embarked on a five-year adventure in love and grace. Both required daily attention and lots of medical care. Neither was willing to be in the same room with the other. Eventually, through it all, Mom and I made our peace and God used that trying time to teach our whole family the merits of sacrificial love.

He also showed us his incredible creativity, power and ability to respond to even our forgotten prayers. Mother softened, and embraced her Catholic faith with a new love for the Holy Spirit. And Dad? Through his experience, I learned that life’s most mundane incidents can be a big part of the Lord’s plan. That’s what happened with my father and Sherman, a mutt, I refer to as God’s dog.

Just a puppy when my son and son-in-law found him under a Nampa mobile home, Sherman soon became my dad’s best reason to keep living. They enjoyed an easy routine of fetch, tug-of-war and long walks. When my mother was dying of emphysema I was especially thankful that Dad had Sherman to keep him company if I was late for his dinner.

During my mother’s final days, I became concerned that we were leaving dad alone too much. He began talking about a nice young lady who helped him walk the dog, a woman from the school. I couldn’t think of any schools near his house. He’d always been very lucid, but he was almost 90! I credited it to delusionary senility and I decided to just let him ramble.

Then one day I got a message at my office from a woman who did indeed work at a school—Cole Valley Christian School. She was my dad’s friend, and now I consider her my sister. Her story was extraordinary. Although she typically worked through her lunch hour, her supervisor had been encouraging her to take a break. So after a few days of reading a book in her car she decided to walk. For several weeks, no matter which way she went, she ran into dad and the dog. She loved dogs. She also loved Jesus and she shared the Lord with my dad. He had finally agreed to attend her church that coming Sunday. Would I bring him?

I assumed she meant would I take him to Cole Christian, a church not unlike my own. But no, she attended a smaller church, made up of mostly older people, pastored by a man in his seventies. She and her husband, in their early 50s, were among the youngest members.

That tiny body of believers was perfect for my dad. Many were Scandinavians from Minnesota, just like him. They sang old hymns, preached the Good News of Jesus and loved extraordinarily. They made him feel special. Best of all it was just a few miles from his house. I wasn’t even aware that the little congregation existed, but God knew all about them.

Comfortable with the people and the surroundings my dad began looking forward to Sundays. He met with the pastor, prayed the sinner’s prayer and was like a little kid the first time he took communion. Then, on his 90th birthday he was water baptized.

God had given me the blessed assurance that my dad would indeed be in heaven for all eternity. My father would be in the presence of saints and angels. I wept but this time they were tears of joy.

My dad passed into glory four months later. Now, whenever I’m confronted with seemingly impossible situations, I remind myself that God used a lost puppy to work His perfect will in my dad’s life. Who could have imagined it? Then I recall what the angel told Mary while announcing the birth of Christ: With God “nothing is impossible.”

Colleen Maile loves her wonderful life as a wife, mom and grandma. She leads the Ladies’ Thursday Night Bible Study, at 7 pm in Room 101 of the Preschool Building. She has also recently written a daily study Praying Your Way Through the Scariest Day. It is available under the resource section of this website.

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