A dog is supposed to be our best friend, but sometimes we humans have a chance to return the friendship. Gizmo certainly had been a friend to the Walls family. They loved their ten-year-old black Labrador, especially the children.
But did they love him fifteen hundred dollars worth?
That’s what the vet said it would cost for surgery and chemotherapy after Gizmo was diagnosed with bone cancer.
With the treatment, his prognosis would be good. Without it, Gizmo’s days were numbered.
Mom and Dad said that as much as they loved Gizmo, they simply couldn’t afford that much money to save him. So the kids came up with a way to raise the needed cash: They would sell their toys.
They held a yard sale. The money started coming in, dime by dime at first.
Where the love of God is truly perfected … a tenderness to all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen the sweetness of life in the animal creation.
- John Woolman
However, when word of the children’s sacrificial love spread, donations began pouring in from all over the country. Ten-year-old Kimberly Walls says selling her toys was an easy choice. After she overheard her dad say they’d just have to have Gizmo put to sleep, Kimberly says the decision wasn’t hard at all.
How many adults would sell their favorite toys to help a pet? It may be that our noblest deed is the kindness we show to someone who can never repay us.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.“
National radio broadcaster and author of seven books, including Second Thoughts, shares his essays, which are like the voice of an old friend - kind, encouraging and filled with gentle wisdom. To learn more about Mort Crim and hear a daily “Second Thought,” visit www.mortcrimsecondthoughts.com
