A Dog Who Was Run Over By a Car, Restored To Life

Paul White shares how praying with a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy led to the healing of dog thought to be dead.

By Paul White, Ventura, CA

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I was on my way to church one rainy Wednesday night during the winter, when I saw a small poodle jump out in front of the pickup truck in front of me that was going around 35-40 mph. The truck's undercarriage ran over the dog, striking it and knocking it unconscious. The two teenagers driving the truck pulled over to see what had happened, and so did I. I went out to the dog in the road and literally almost had to unstick him from the blacktop to pick him up. His body was intact, but he was unconscious with no perceivable pulse. He appeared to be dead.

The boys felt terrible and wanted to take the dog to a vet, even though it appeared to be too late. While they were trying to locate one on the phone, I was holding the by-now cold dog in my hands and praying. As a guide for my prayers, what came to me was a passage from a book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, a book which offers a spiritual, healing perspective on the Bible and specifically on the words and works of Christ Jesus. The passage reads:

Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it. (75)

To me, this meant that I had to stop praying to try to bring a dog back to life -- stop trying to beg God to reverse something that He had caused, allowed, or hadn't been able to prevent. Rather, I turned my thought totally away from the sad picture of the lifeless dog and, instead, expressed silent gratitude for the eternal, indestructible Life that IS God, and therefore, by reflection, must be forever expressed by all of His creation.

By this time, the boys had found a vet who agreed to open his office for us, and we were driving there, with me in the back seat holding the dog. As we neared the vet's office, the dog's body started to feel warmer, and I could detect a pulse; but the dog was still unconscious. We reached the vet's office and walked into his examination room in the dark. I laid the motionless dog on the examining table, with all four of us gathered around. The vet reached up to turn on a strong overhead light. As bright light flooded the room, the dog instantly jumped to his feet, stood still for a moment, and then walked over to me and started licking my hand, with no visible pain or difficulty. The vet soon used information on the dog's tag to locate the owner, who chose to leave the dog with the vet for overnight observation. When I called the next day, the dog had been examined closely, found only to have a couple of minor abrasions, and so had been released to the owner in full health.