Jackie Ray's Letter to God and Oddus' Passing

Letter to God by Jackie Ray

(excerpt from her daily journal she is keeping as part of her school here)

God I love you.  Thank you for loving me sooo much and for forgiving me.  God, I know you let Oddus die for a reason, and I know that you will get us another dog if you want us to have one.  I know you have a plan for me and my family.  I know that I miss Oddus sooo much and that I cried when I heard he had died.  I guess now that it happened for a reason and that you love me.  AMEN!

** Note:  Our baby puppy Oddus had to be put down last week.  He was biting people.  We sought the best trainers and veterinarians but they could not save him.  The trainer had warned us this may happpen when we first picked him up as he had not been socialized properly from birth. 

BUT... we now see God's plan.  You see we signed the papers to get Oddus on Dec 1 and then felt called by God (which we didn't expect at all) to go on this mission trip on Dec 5.  We kept asking God why he gave us Oddus but then asked us to go on a mission trip.  In all our planning for the trip, this one thing did not make sense.

However, now we see God's plan... He knew that Oddus was taken from his mother too early and that he would not have long on earth.  God knew that Oddus would have a great life with us for the short time we had together.  And he did!  We loved him dearly and invested our time and hearts into him.  He will be missed.  We had a nice ceremony at the beach where we all collected sticks, just like Oddus used to like to do in the yard, and then we told old stories about him and threw the sticks into the Ocean. 

A special thanks for Ann Drey for working so hard to save Oddus and for handling this sad situation for us while we are away.  Yet another example of Ann's servant heart and love for our family.  We love you Ann!
We miss you Oddie :(