From My Mouth to God's Ear

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for a muzzle

It was Service Sunday, a day when the members of our church gather together for a quick sandwich and then grab paint brushes, hammers, rakes, trash bags, or drills and set off in groups to help out the community, a sort of grass roots local missionary trip without going out of the city limits.

Sign-up sheets were provided so people could find the right job for their skill level. There were houses that needed to be painted, porches that needed railings, nursing homes that could use some Color Splash, trails that needed to be cleared of trash, and dogs that needed to be walked.

Guess which one the six-year-old and the ten-teen picked? Yes, we were going to walk dogs even though you have to bribe, conjole, or threaten to get them to walk their own dog. These dogs were in training as senior companions. I’m thinking “Ok, this isn’t so bad. They are all probably small dogs, poodles, shih tzus, other little fluff balls.” We got our map and off we went, dog leashes in hand.

The map was from Map Quest. Need I say more? Ok, I’ve lived in this community for 50 years
and I have driven down Hwy 7 many times but I was always looking down the highway or checking in the rearview mirror to see if I still had the horse trailer behind me. I was not looking at what is on the sides of the road.

I found the highway and also several white fences, one of the landmarks that was to mark the dog kennel place. The map said two tenths of a mile. When we had gone five miles, I decided we had passed it. I gripped the steering wheel and made a hard turn to the left, saving wear and tear on two of the tires as I did so.

“This is where she starts screaming”, said the six-year-old, a veteran of at least three
skirmishes and one all-out war with a paper-never-to-be-folded-correctly-again
map.

“Not this time, this is a church trip,” replied the ten-teen.

“Nu uh, the back of her neck is red. She’s gonna start yelling any minute. Even God is gonna hear her!”

“I’m not going to scream!” I shouted over my shoulder to the back seat. “We can find this place.” I pulled over on the shoulder of the road and pulled out my GPS, Tom Tom. I punched in
the numbers but Tom didn’t know where it was either. I checked the number of the address. I back tracked to the starting point. “This time look for the numbers on the mail boxes and tell me if we are going up or down. Now what’s that number?”

“1704”

“And this one?”

“There isn’t a number on this one,” came from the ten-teen.

We drove on for another mile. “And this one?” I asked.

“2289”

“Are we going up or down? I can’t drive and remember numbers.” Truth is I can’t remember numbers whether I’m driving or not.

“I forgot” came from the ten-ten.

“She’s getting frustrated. She’s gonna start screaming. I don’t care if it is a church mission. She’s gonna start screaming,” came from the Been-there-heard-that-before six-year-old.

“I’M NOT GOING TO SCREAM. JUST READ THE MAILBOXES!”

“See?” said the youngest.

I took a deep breath and continued down the highway. I pulled over at every mailbox with a number. The people following me thought I was an unmarked mail carrier practicing some kind of fake curbside delivery. After twenty minutes of mail-box hopping and shouting, we found the kennel. “Found it!” I hoarsely whispered. “We made it.”

The lady who owned the kennel greeted us and said “Hope you didn’t try to find this place
with a GPS. GPS doesn’t recognize this place. Guess we don’t exist. Hope the other family coming finds us.”

For the next three hours the children walked dogs; big dogs, medium dogs, but no small dogs. They petted dogs and they brushed dogs. They took the dogs through obstacle
courses. They asked questions. They even listened to half of the answers. They had a great time.

The other family never did show up. I guess they used On Star.

When it was time to leave and we were backing out of the drive-way, the six-year-old
timidly asked “Do you know the way home?”

“Yes,” I calmly said “I do.”

“Good,” said the six-year-old, “Cause I think God’s ears might be kinda sore.”

From my mouth to God’s ears… and back. Oops!