The White Stag

There comes a point in most people’s life when they are positive that they are at the end of their rope. I had not only reached the end of my rope, the end had tattered and I was barely hanging on by a string. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. I had been looking for a job for about six months after being laid off. My wife and I had gone through every penny of our savings, our retirement and tapped every resource we had to borrow money in an effort just to keep our heads above water.

My son was just three months old when I lost my job and I will never forget the wonderful times I spent with him between job hunts and useless interviews with placement agencies. If there is ever a bright spot during a time of need, this was it. However, just three months into my six-month lay off I developed a small hernia on my abdomen. Lucky for us we maintained insurance coverage even though we could not afford it. I visited the doctor to have the hernia looked at and was operated on within five days.

Surgeries Abound
So, there I was stuck at home recuperating with no money, no job prospects and on the verge of losing everything. I thought that there was no way things could get worse. It’s funny how you can look back in life and see just how wrong you really were. In the course of recovering from abdominal surgery and while taking care of my six-month-old son, I bent to place him in his swing for an afternoon nap and felt something snap in my lower back.

Now, I had suffered for almost ten years from a herniated disc in my lower back caused by lifting my 70-pound dog over a fence. But the suffering had been sporadic and never very severe. After this snapping episode, I could not even stand up. Rolling over in bed became such agony that at the time, I think I would have rather died. So, off I went to the emergency room for a cocktail of drugs that would release the snare in my back and allow me to return to normal.

Boy was I in for a big surprise. While the drugs did the trick and allowed me to straighten up and stand normally again, they certainly did not let me return to normal. Over the course of about two weeks, I threw my back out three more times and each time had to go to the emergency room for my cocktail. After the last trip, my wife and I decided that it was time to visit a surgeon. So, just three weeks after having a hernia operated on, there I was again going under the knife. This time it was for a much more serious operation that could mean the difference between walking and being in a wheelchair.

Up and Moving
God must have reached down and held the hand of the surgeon that day because ten hours after surgery I was able to get up and go to the bathroom by myself. Miracles aside, we were still at the very end of our rope with no place to turn and no more money in reserve. We had recently started attending a local church in an effort to maintain a level of faith in the face of adversity. My wife and I would dress up our baby and head off to church each Sunday and pray for release.

Like most people, we never expected to receive an audible answer to our prayers. We continued bolstering each other when our faith waned and we continued basking in the gift God had given us in the form of a healthy son. We still prayed for release from our plight but we tried not to dwell too much on what was soon going to be the end of our rope.

Our Message
One beautiful Sunday while returning home from church, my wife and I coincidentally (or maybe not) happened to look off to the right into the woods next to a home and we both kind of did a double take. We were cruising at about 35 or 40 mile per hour so we looked at each other in disbelief and started talking at the same time. “Did you see a…” my wife said while I started with, “was that a…” We both laughed and with no further conversation, I turned the car around and headed back to the house where we had been looking.

I slowed to almost a crawl so as not to make too much noise as I pulled into the driveway. The house was one of those late 1800’s homes that probably cost about a million dollars, but that is not what captured our attention. At the end of the driveway, about 100 yards off the road, in the edge of the woods, there stood a family of deer. Now I know you are saying what’s so special about a family of deer. Well, one member of this family was a solid white stag that was certainly one of the most beautiful things I had seen in this world.

Unlike most deer, this stag seemed to sense that we were watching and he did not bolt off into the woods. Instead, he led his family out of the woods and around a clustering of bushes; eating the entire time. The white stag would nibble a little here, wander a bit down the bushes nibble a little more and then look up to see if we were still there.

All the while, my wife and I, with our little baby son in the back, were sitting in our car in awed silence. Both of us were suffused with goose bumps at the unusual beauty of the creature we were watching. We were also suffused with warmth and a feeling of encompassing love that came from more than just seeing the white stag. We both knew without having to speak a word that we had just received a message from God. We knew that he was letting us know that he is always in our lives.

The stag and his family hung around eating off of the bushes and trees for about ten minutes before wandering off deeper into the woods. The entire time he was visible, my wife and I shared that unspoken communication that said God is here with us, letting us know that things will be all right. We drove off without saying anything for at least another ten minutes.

Believe in God
To this day, I will never forget seeing that white stag in our time of greatest need and feeling the hand of God reassuring us that he was with us during our strife. Not everything fell into place that same day but events have transpired to the point where I have a great job making more money than I have ever made and my wife is able to stay home with our son who is now three.

No matter what events may happen now or in the future, my wife and I are able to remember our visit from the white stag and both of us can feel the warmth and love of God and we are renewed in spirit and in faith. Every time I drive by that house, whether alone or with my wife, I crane my neck to try and get another glimpse of the white stag and also to try and recapture that indescribable feeling we both felt when God touched our lives.

So, no matter how bad things are, try to maintain your faith in God and even if you do not get a visit from Him like we did; know that he is there, always loving and supporting you no matter what your need. Know in your heart and soul that God loves us all and that he will take care of us now and in the future. Have faith in God and your life will be forever brighter.