Flash

by Rachel Anne Ridge

  “Nothing, Rachel,” Tom assured me. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It would be just typical, wouldn’t it? Hoofprints are no indication of whether he got out through there or not. Think about how often he materializes on this side of the fence in the hockey area. I don’t know how he does it, but somehow he does.”

  Good point. In addition to the hockey areas, Flash was also famous for making our rope barricades across the barn openings quite irrelevant. Whenever we needed Flash to mind his own business and stay out of our way, we pulled a multilayered, crosshatched system of ropes across the expanse and secured them with a series of eye hooks and carabiners. Too low to the ground to go under, too high to go over, too solid to go through.

  That is, for anyone and anything except Flash. He always got through.

  But we never actually saw him do it. That was the mystery. We could be nearby, engrossed in some barn activity, when suddenly there was Flash. Just nonchalantly scratching some imaginary itch with his teeth. Then he’d look up, all like, Oh hey, what are YOU doing here? I’m just itchy . . . just scratchin’ my itch.

  To be honest, it was a little creepy.

  Was this disappearance another one of his tricks? We had a full day of work ahead and no time to go chasing down an elusive donkey. I called our client and explained that hopefully this wouldn’t take long; we would arrive just a little later than planned to finish her kitchen backsplash. The lady was understanding, although I did have to repeat, “My donkey, yes, that’s right, my donkey has gone missing. No, not my doggie. My donkey, as in HEE-haw donkey!” I don’t know why that was so hard to understand.

  Back outside, Tom and I combed the immediate area. We worked our way from the back of the property, through the yard near the house, and into the woods in front. The problem with—sorry, one of the problems with—a brownish-gray donkey is that he blends right into the brush.

  We had already learned from experience in the back woods that you could be looking right at him and not see him. He loved to make us call him until we were exasperated. All the while, he was silently biding his time from four feet away, still as a statue, and then he’d startle us by moving at full speed. Whoa, now! Nostrils flared, with a wild-eyed look, he’d nearly plow us over, barely able to contain his excitement for having pulled a fast one. He’d stop short at the last second, quivering in delight. I’ve read that donkeys’ depth perception is hampered by their wide-set eyes, and I believe it. He always seemed surprised to come upon us so quickly.

  We called and whistled. (Well, Tom whistled. I’ve never gotten the hang of it.) We shook containers of oats.

  Nothing. He’d better not be right under our noses this whole time. I’ll kill him.

  We met at the road and then split up again. Tom went east, and I went west along the narrow lane. Calling, whistling (again, not me), and making enticing noises with our buckets. About a half mile down the road, my phone rang. It was Tom.

  “This is pointless. He could be anywhere. I think we’d better notify the sheriff’s department,” Tom said. “That way, if someone reports that they’ve found him, they’ll know to call us.” I agreed it was a good approach but secretly hoped our call wouldn’t be answered by either of the sheriffs who were around the last time he busted out. I didn’t want Flash to be the poster child for “donkey problems.” You know how people like to label troublemakers.

  But, as fate would have it . . .

  “You the donkey people?” It was the deputy from the night of the romantic rendezvous. Sigh. I went ahead and explained our situation. “We’ll call you if we hear anything,” he said. “Don’t worry, we know where you live.”

  I knew he was writing this on Flash’s permanent record, but what choice did we have? We needed his help. By the time I hung up the phone, the coffee I had drunk earlier was making my stomach hurt. Reality started to hit me.

  What if Flash never comes back? What if we never find him? What if someone steals him? Could it really be that, in just a few years’ time, I’d become so attached to this long-eared character that the thought of losing him now broke my heart? The depth of my emotions caught me off guard. Don’t be silly, Rachel. He’s just a donkey. But I knew he’d become much more than that.

  As I gathered up the stack of flyers, the words MISSING DONKEY shouted at me. I momentarily silenced them with prayer.

  “God, I know You have much bigger problems to solve today. I know there are wars and famines and people who have serious needs. But would You please help us find Flash? I love him. I believe You gave him to us for a reason. He has been such a blessing. A sweet, crazy blessing. Please bring him home.”

  I called our client once again and canceled our project for the day, not wanting to be on the opposite side of Dallas if the phone rang. I’m sure she could hear the worry in my voice, and she graciously rescheduled.

  As the minutes ticked by, I vaguely remembered an account in the Bible about some missing donkeys. Maybe it would help to read it. After a little digging, I found it in the book of 1 Samuel. I settled in to take my mind off the worry.

  Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost.

  1 SAMUEL 9:3, ESV

  I sat up from my cushioned slouch and did a double take. I could instantly relate. Somehow, I knew this was going to be a good narrative.

  Kish, a wealthy man in Israel, instructs his son, Saul, to take a servant and go find a wandering band of donkeys. It probably was not a huge request. The donkeys were likely allowed to graze freely—and, hey, how far can donkeys go, anyway? Pssh. This job just goes along with being a son of a rich guy, and maybe Kish thought a little day trip would be a good experience for him. So Saul and the servant start looking.

  They look high and low, up and down and all around, but they cannot find the donkeys anywhere. They keep widening their circle until they’ve traveled around the entire area. Eventually, their simple task has turned into a three-day, grueling search . . . and still nothing. They’ve exhausted all of the countryside in their tribe’s land and probably are debating whether to scour the neighboring region.

  This was sounding familiar.

  Saul finally gives up and says to his servant, “We’d better head home. I’m sure my father isn’t concerned about the donkeys anymore. But he’s probably wondering what happened to us.” Somehow, I think Saul may have added a few choice adjectives before the word donkeys, but the Scripture writer wisely leaves them out.

  The servant has a last-minute, brilliant idea. “Hey! Before we leave, let’s go to the next town where a revered prophet lives. Maybe he’ll know where the donkeys have wandered to.”

  Just as they are passing through the gates of the village to find this prophet, who should be coming toward them but the very man they are looking for—Samuel. They are literally about to bump into one another.

  It is a holy intersection. Saul is at the right place at just the right time. On the previous day, while Saul and the servant were still out in the middle of nowhere looking for those donkeys, God had spoken to Samuel and told him to be on the lookout for this same young man. He gave Samuel an important task—to anoint Saul the king of Israel.

  When the two meet, Samuel invites Saul to eat with him, promising to tell Saul the following morning what he and his servant wanted to know. And then he adds something strange. “By the way . . . about those missing donkeys. Someone found them and returned them to your father, so you don’t need to worry anymore.”

  Wait. I looked up from the open pages and squinted my eyes at a distant point in puzzlement. I thought the one thing Saul wanted to know was the whereabouts of the donkeys. But the prophet just told him they’d been found. So . . . that should be all there is to it. It seems to me like Saul just learned the thing he wanted to know—that the donkeys had been found.

  Apparently God had something else in mind.

  Suddenly, it dawned on me. Saul only thought this journey was about donkeys. But it was really about so much more.

  In these sho
rt paragraphs, I saw that God used the problem of rounding up a band of renegade donkeys to put Saul on a collision course with destiny. God moved Saul from his own little world, by means of a frustrating mission, into a place of encounter. A place where God was going to do something extraordinary. This journey, Saul learned, was never about the donkeys.

  I sat on the couch, with my phone in one hand and Bible in the other, hoping someone would call me with Flash’s whereabouts. But the minutes ticked by in silence, so I kept reading. I thought maybe I was getting to the best part and tried to focus on the words on the page instead of thinking about Flash. Out there all alone. With no one to comfort him.

  I willed my heart to stop its anxious pace. Breathe, Rachel.

  The story wraps up with a final scene. The next day, Samuel takes Saul aside and tells him the true reason for his roundup task. He anoints his head with oil, tells him he is going to be king, and reveals what will happen on his way home. He says to Saul, “From this moment on, you’ll be changed into a different person.” After some final instructions, Samuel sends him on his way. As Saul turns and starts to leave, something amazing happens: God gives him a new heart.

  Saul’s life was forever changed in that moment. His heart was new. He was different. In that instant, he went from being “that tall kid” from an obscure family to being the king of an entire nation. From wet-behind-the-ears bumpkin to powerful leader. He moved from doubt to faith, fear to courage, insecurity to confidence. It was a history-making intersection of obedience and destiny that all started with . . . a donkey problem.

  Saul’s willingness to take on the unglamorous job of finding some wayward animals put him in the perfect spot for Samuel to find him. It took Saul out of his comfort zone and put him into a place of heart change. God was working behind the scenes the whole time, orchestrating and creating “chance opportunities” that led Saul straight into his purpose and calling.

  He was transformed.

  Lost donkeys. God’s purposes. A date with destiny. I wondered if God might still be in the business of using such humble means for a greater purpose.

  If only I had a donkey.

  Because mine was still missing.

  I had fretted when Flash arrived in our lives as a lost donkey, and now it appeared that he’d leave in the same manner. I didn’t like the awful irony of it. Not after all we’d been through together.

  I thought of his ears—those beautiful ears. And the way his nostrils flared when he was excited about getting a snack. His crazy bray, heard less often these days, but endearing in its earnestness. I loved how he sometimes bucked for joy when we called him in from the field for dinner, and how he liked to follow me around on my exercise walks around his pasture.

  I would miss him so terribly if he never came back. My mind was already playing a highlight reel of all of Flash’s golden moments, accompanied by Green Day’s “Time of Your Life.”

  Oh, the stories I recalled.

  Like the time Flash showed up in the barn with a haircut. A haircut! Somehow, some way, his mane had been trimmed into a choppy mohawk. One day he just walked up to the gate with a different hairdo.

  We couldn’t imagine how it had happened, or more disconcerting, who would sneak into our pasture with scissors to chop off his mane. Or why. Why would someone give my donkey spiked bangs?

  We went over the possible scenarios and suspects. Bridgette and Steve, as far as we knew, were out of town. We eliminated them right off the bat, even though we could see how the importance of good hair, at least for a Southern woman, would be ample motivation.

  The only other adjoining property was the baby mama’s pasture. Perhaps months of watching the pretty little mare become the size of a barge had caused her owner to nurse a grudge, which culminated in taking some scissors to Flash’s mane in an act of rage. Like a subtle but crazed message to say, “I’m watching you.” It seemed like a strange way to get a message across, but you never know. I mean, he could just call us. We’re in the phone book.

  Maybe some scissors-happy kid wandered by, and seeing a hapless victim across the fence, decided, “Why not?” Perhaps cutting Flash’s mane into ragged strokes fulfilled some kind of dream for him. It could happen.

  Or had Flash himself hired someone to come in and give him a new “metro” look? Was he tired of his hipster hair that said, “I can’t remember the last time I had a haircut, but since this look is now mainstream with donkeys, it’s not cool anymore”? It seemed a plausible explanation, given his love for plaid and vinyl records.

  Could it be aliens? Nah. Surely not.

  It was like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

  For weeks, we dragged every guest out to see Flash’s ridiculous hairdo. We speculated and laughed at the idea that someone would have nothing better to do than trim Flash’s mane and then sort of “forget” to tell us. But there had to be some explanation!

  A couple of months later, when Bridgette and Steve returned from a long vacation and we were catching up, I managed to casually work in the question, “Say, do you know anything about Flash’s haircut?” They did.

  Bridgette’s son, Heath, had been visiting just before they went out of town together, and he had gone over to pet Flash. Flash had rolled in a burr patch, filling his mane with the thorny stickers. So, Heath helpfully cut the burrs out . . . aaand forgot to tell us.

  The Mystery of the Phantom Barber solved.

  It was only slightly disappointing to learn it wasn’t aliens after all.

  But this wasn’t the only mystery Flash had been involved with. There was also the Miracle of the Blue Hoof. That was the time when—

  Rrrrring!

  Just then, my cell phone rang. It was the sheriff with some news. “Yes? Go on!” Somebody had found a random donkey wandering around and had put him in their pasture for safekeeping. Could it be Flash? It must be. Please, let it be Flash. The property was about a mile away, down our twisty road through the woods, over a single-lane bridge, and past a couple of neighborhoods.

  I imagined Flash moseying along, searching for that next blade of delicious grass, not realizing he was getting farther and farther from home. I could picture him looking up and not recognizing his surroundings. He must be so scared and lonely! My dear Flash. I felt a small spark of hope as I laced up my shoes and grabbed the truck keys.

  The sheriff met Tom and me at the location and gave us that “you again” nod of recognition. I noticed he had a clipboard and was taking notes. I silently willed Flash, if indeed this was Flash, to behave himself in the presence of the law. I certainly didn’t want to see his mug shot hanging on the bulletin board of the local convenience store.

  Mr. Sheriff escorted us around the house and back to the pasture to see if this stray donkey was ours. My legs felt like jelly as I held my breath.

  Flash!

  It was him!

  His head was over the gate, looking straight at us with his ears pricked forward, just as if he’d been waiting there the entire time. There were the two telltale scars, like choppy lines across his nose. There was the deep scar across his chest and the one on his left shoulder. The small hooves and long, wispy tail. The chocolate-colored cross on his shoulders. The stripe down the center of his back to his tail. The rubbery lips and eager brown eyes. Relief poured over me as I took in every inch of him.

  “Is this your animal?” the officer inquired, bushy eyebrows up and pen poised.

  “Yessir,” we replied in unison, reaching over the gate and caressing his white muzzle. “Yes, this is Flash. This is our donkey.” Flash pressed himself close and cocked his head to the side with eyes closed, clearly happy to see us.

  “Well, that’s some donkey you’ve got there.” The sheriff smiled, putting the pen in his pocket. “I’ll let y’all take it from here.” He turned to leave, then paused and looked back. “Most strays around here don’t have anyone who cares enough to come looking for them. I’m glad this one has a good home.”

  “Well, he’s par
t of our family,” Tom replied. “I wouldn’t have believed we’d love a donkey this much, but he’s pretty special.” He pulled out the halter and lead rope while I wrapped my arms around Flash’s neck and squeezed him tightly. I loved his donkey smell—a mixture of dust, grass, sweat, and gentleness.

  With a tip of his hat, the sheriff left us to the task of getting Flash home. Maybe he’d come willingly this time.

  Or not.

  I have no idea how Saul thought that he and one helper could get a whole band of wandering donkeys home from the countryside, because Tom and I couldn’t get one stray donkey to move twenty feet. Flash dug in his heels and refused to come along. Maybe he was just putting on a show for the horses on the property, trying to impress them with his power to impede. Maybe he wasn’t done with his adventure.

  Whatever the case, after an hour of coaxing, offering oats, and waiting for him to decide, we were only a stone’s throw into our one-mile walk. The sun was starting to set, and Flash was in no hurry to cooperate, despite the fact he was being rescued once again.

  “Your donkey needs obedience school,” Tom said, adjusting the lead rope in his hands.

  “Duly noted.” I rolled my eyes at him over Flash’s rump from my position at the rear. If we could ever get him home, I’d look right into that. Obviously, we still needed help with our special, much-loved donkey.

  The homeowner saw our predicament and offered the use of his horse trailer. Slowly, we urged Flash into it, successful at last. We drove back home, and as we pulled into our pasture and unloaded him, we felt an acute sense of gratitude. Tom was right. Flash wasn’t “just a donkey” to us anymore. He was part of the family. He was ours. And, he was a sign. Okay, maybe not a sign, but a reminder of something. A reminder of God’s providence and care.

  I watched Flash pause and take in the scene of his familiar pasture. He breathed the air and sniffed the wildflowers. He nibbled on the tender shoots of grass that poked up from the moist ground, giving a deep sigh as his lips found the next bite. Despite his reluctance to travel, Flash was glad to be back where he belonged. Safe within our care once again. I lingered near him and raised a silent prayer of thanks.