Lessons On Love From A Runt Hamster

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was
walking along the beach with the LORD.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
one belonging to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of
his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very
lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he
questioned the LORD about it:

"LORD, you said that once I decided to follow
you, you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when
I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied:

"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."


Footprints In The Sand, I'm not ashamed to admit, is one of my favorite poems. I've brazenly shared this fact with enough people to know that many consider the poem to be rather schmaltzy and maudlin. So be it. For me, the poem has never lost its beauty.

The reason why is simple. I've been through enough sorrows and enough lonely stretches in life to have an insatiable desire for Presence. To have someone with me, and to know that I am not alone precisely when I feel most alone.

I have, of course, always identified with the man in the poem: the one looking back at his life's journey and remembering those times when he was most hurt and most anguished. Recently, however, I was reminded of the poem by an experience that gave me (however slightly) a glimpse into God's perspective... the perspective of our God who says, "My son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you.."

A few months ago we mated our two hamsters intentionally. (I have a few rodent-hating friends who might find this clarifying adjective helpful.) Every now and then human parent gets things right, and such moments are to be celebrated precisely because they are so few and far between.

The decision to allow our hamsters to reproduce was a huge hit with the kids, and there was hardly a more excited moment in our home (for children and adults alike) than when the first hamster baby came toddling out of his mother's nest.

For those not versed in these arts, it must be understood that hamster moms can and do consume their children (literally) when they feel stressed. So the arrival of a "live one" into the open air of the cage was cause for sighs of relief all around. As the days passed our joy increased with each new healthy baby that tumbled out of the nest.

All in all, we eventually discovered that there were ten baby hamsters in that unbelievably small nest. And they grew. Quickly.

Before long our beloved and tired hamster mom bailed on her kids with increasing frequency, trying to catch a few winks of sleep in any place of refuge she could find. Corner of the cage... on top of her little wooden house... Watching a sleepy mom trying to get some peace and rest was truly a hilarious sight and, I think, the tipping point for my wife to truly fall in love with our little rodents. There are some things only mothers understand; shared trench experiences make for lasting bonds.

But all did not go without a hitch. Some days after the baby-sightings began we noticed a stunted runt flailing about helplessly outside the nest. With food as bait we enticed Mamma near to the "lost soul" and were apprehensively relieved to see her lug the little one back into the nest. Would the child get life-restoring sustenance there? We hoped against hope.

That night my wife asked me to do one last spot-check downstairs. Was the baby safe in the nest still? No. Mamma hamster instinctively knew this one was heading down fast and, following the laws of the wild, had re-deposited him outside her nest.

Thus began our struggle to save a dying runt. And dying it clearly was. This one was clearly smaller than his nine siblings and quite malnourished. My wife gave as only a mother can. She got up regularly throughout the night, dropper-feeding warm milk to the famished little one. The below picture, taken the next morning, showed a markedly improved hamster.

Our hopes began to rise, but on the second morning we woke to find the little one in a fetal position. When I picked it up, little Runt (so named by the children) breathed its last right there and then, in the palm of my hand.

I made my peace with the outcome quickly, but over the next few hours found myself reflecting on our loss of, in the eyes of the world, such a very small thing. What struck me most was how very different my feelings for this hamster were, as opposed to how I felt about the nine healthy ones still puttering about in the cage.

This hamster's own mother had rejected him. His nine siblings didn't in any real sense even know he existed. Or care. Runt was abandoned by all. All hamsters, that is.

But beings much greater than hamsters had taken him (and him in particular) into their concerns in a way that vastly overshadowed our care for the other hamsters. The needs of nine hamsters were met via daily additions to one food dish. Runt, in contrast, we hand-fed on an hourly basis throughout the night. Yes, if love is expressed in action, we loved Runt not least, but most.

There were of course ten babies. And they were all wanted and loved. But it was the one that died in my hands that I loved most and worked hardest for on that day.

It was hard for my thoughts not to be drawn back to that Footprints poem in the midst of these reflections.

Does God care when we suffer?

Do we even need to ask? God cares beyond anything that words can express.

And yet... And yet... we are tempted to wonder where God is when we suffer. We look at those who are not suffering and wonder why God loves them more.

Could anything be further from the truth? Nobody has more of God's attention or more of God's affections than those who are suffering.

We don't have easy answers to the question of why our omnipotent and loving God allows us to suffer, but my short time with Runt served to remind me well of how very much our God adores us and dotes on us.

"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."