Early one morning about four years ago, I entered our barn to feed the animals and saw Giovanni, one of our livestock guardian dogs, lying on his side, bleeding. I ran over to him, but he did not move. As he weighs a hundred and twenty pounds, I couldn’t carry him, but I gently encouraged him to get up and walk with me the short distance to the house. I cleaned him up and made a comfortable spot for him to rest in the backyard. It appeared that a large cyst had ruptured, and the bleeding continued.

My initial thought was to call the vet, but a “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) guided me to pray first. I covered Giovanni’s side with an absorbent cloth and sat next to him.

The fear of losing my faithful dog was overwhelming, and at first I didn’t know what to pray. However, I obeyed that still, small voice and trusted God to quiet my fear. I had always turned to the Bible for comfort in times of need and, feeling sure that it was God guiding me, found myself tenderly reminded of the Gospel account of a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years (see Luke 8:43–48). She had spent all her money on doctors, who could not heal her. In desperation, she touched the hem of Christ Jesus’ clothes as he passed through a crowd, and she was instantly healed. Jesus told her, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” It seemed reasonable to expect that the same divine Principle, God, that had healed that woman was available to heal my Giovanni, too.