An Answer to Prayer One day when I was thirteen, someone gave my family something. We named him Lazarus. He was a cottontail rabbit. He was a baby, only about three weeks old, and was almost dead. A cat ate all Lazarus’ mother, brothers and sisters. Our neighbor found baby Lazarus and gave him to me and my family to take care of. He was so small he fit in my cupped hand! My Mom tried to give him warm evaporated milk, but he was so scared he wouldn’t eat. So we put him in a little cardboard box with some grass and water. We prayed he would get better and start to eat. We tried to feed him more evaporated milk about one and a half hours later, and he ate! We were very happy. He ate a lot, and grew fast after that. About a month later, Lazarus was nearly half grown, as near as we could guess by looking at other rabbits outside. He was now living in a wire cage on our bay window looking out at the woods. We knew Lazarus was not happy. We would watch as he would look out at the woods, hour after hour. We decided he was probably looking for his family or maybe wishing he was outside, too. Since he was a wild animal, he was not tame and would run all around his cage when someone tried to pick him up, trying to get away from us. When [or if] someone ever did, he would scratch and kick until we put him back in his cage. He loved it when we went outside and picked handfuls of fresh grass for him to eat. One day one of our friends, Stephanie, was visiting our family. She saw Lazarus looking out at the woods. It made her sad, and she felt sorry for him. She told us if we would let him go back to into the wild where he belonged, then she would give us another, tame baby rabbit. So the next day my sister Sarah, who was twelve, my brother Joshua, who was four, and I took Lazarus to the edge of our woods. We were going to let him go, like Stephanie said. I was trying not to cry as we all hugged and kissed him. Lazarus didn’t move as he looked at his new surroundings. He was finally where he always had wanted to be! Outside! We set him down on the grass. At first, he didn’t move. He crouched and looked around, with his little nose twitching and twitching, as he smelled the new smells. See, he didn’t remember what the outside was like, because he was a tiny baby when we took him into the house. Then suddenly, Lazarus ran a little ways into the woods. Then he stopped, and looked back at us. We shooed him away. He looked at us a moment longer, then he ran off. He was gone. I started crying then. We had raised Lazarus from the time he was a little baby and now he was gone! We didn’t know if he had the necessary skills to stay alive during the winter, because he hadn’t had a mommy to teach him. He had still been nursing when his momma died. All we could do was hope and pray Lazarus would be able to learn how to live outside that winter. Stephanie brought us our new baby bunny. He was tiny, also. He fit into my cupped hand. He was a little black power ball, and we named him Powder. We liked him, but we still missed Lazarus. During the winter, we prayed God would take care of Lazarus. Something strange happened the next summer. One day I was looking outside through the bay window where Lazarus used to live. Suddenly a movement in the bushes caught my eye! I looked a little closer and saw it was a cottontail rabbit! A grown up one! I ran outside, and stopped when I was about fifteen feet away from the cottontail rabbit. I started calling Lazarus’ name, “Lazarus! Lazarus!” The rabbit stopped eating grass and looked at me. He stared at me, and even when I came closer, he didn’t run away! He stayed there for about ten minutes, eating and watching me. Then he hopped off into the woods. My family and I saw that rabbit a few more times that summer. I am still convinced that he was Lazarus, an answer to our prayers.© 2003 by Terra A. Mandrell ~ Please do not reprint or duplicate without permission. |
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