Dog stories

I Need You to be Okay Without Me

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This post is about my dog. And about so much more than my dog.

It’s also about me, and possibly you, too.

You see, when the pandemic hit, I was one of the lucky ones. Through a series of fortunate arrangements, I have been working remotely for the past two years. My dog loves this deal, and despite the constant teleporting between virtual meetings, I love it too. She lays by my feet all day. We enjoy lunch on the back porch. We go for walks in the evening. We are, as the saying goes, attached at the paw.

Which will be a problem in a few months when I return to the office.

For two years we have rarely been apart. She co-pilots our route to the curbside groceries. She mooches treats from every drive-through establishment in town. She protects me from the brave and friendly delivery people.

And pretty soon she will have to be okay without me.

Except I know – and perhaps you do too – that sometimes there is nothing okay about being apart from those we want to be with.

It’s been three years now since my father passed away. I still catch myself expecting to see him, expecting to hear him, expecting to talk to him. I don’t think that will ever go away. The absence of his presence is nearly as tangible as his actual presence. It’s as though someone took that piece of my life and carved it into a metal ink press. The part that’s missing is the part that makes the picture when it’s stamped.

It’s not gone. It’s just completely inverted. And I don’t like it at all.

If our definition of okay is who we were “before,” then we may never be okay again. Instead, we become okay with not being okay. We become okay with being who we are “after.”

That’s what I’m working on with my dog now. The differently hard. And the differently joyful.

Dog chewing on toy.

We’ve started a robust separation desensitization routine. A dozen times a day I walk out the front door and right back in. Or gather my keys and then set them back down. Every day we practice quiet crate time in the other room.

Little by little the panic is a little less panicked. Little by little she is learning – I hope – that she can be okay without me.

She might even find that although this is new, and it’s not what she asked for, that there will be good things, too. There will be opportunities she wouldn’t have had otherwise – and no, I don’t mean sneaking into the garbage unobserved.

What can any of us say about the road ahead? We can say this: that our eyes have not seen, our ears have not heard, and our hearts have not begun to imagine what God has prepared for those who love him. We have the strength of the Father guiding us through both the lines and the spaces. We can embrace both the joy and the pain. And we can cling to the one presence that we never need to be okay without.

This post was originally written for inspireafire.com.

An Act in Due Season

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Black lab puppy in leaves
Black lab puppy running

I’d like to introduce you to Izzie.

Yes, that fuzzy little black canine amongst all the leaves is Izzie. And so is this cute little blur. This is back in the day when your typical point and shoot camera had a hard time keeping up with something as rambunctious as a black lab puppy.

 But before you start thinking this is just another cute puppy story, let me stop you right there.

You see, Izzie was born in a special kennel outside New York City for a very special purpose. When I was a senior in high school he came to live with me. And then he left for something even greater.

I had always wanted a dog, but my parents did not. They let me run wild with smaller critters –  five breeds of rabbits and two breeds of ducks filled my expanding hobby yard – but they firmly declined my plea for a dog.

Until I hatched the perfect plan.

My answers were standard: He’s not actually my dog; I’m just caring for him right now. There is someone out there who needs him even more than me. Of course it will break my heart, but it’s for such a good cause.

I would raise a puppy for a year. When I left for college, the puppy would also leave for school. To become a guide dog for the blind. It was a service project with an outcome they couldn’t refuse.

Over my year of puppy raising, I heard variations of the same question: How could I possibly give up a puppy after loving it for a year?

Today, I know the answer is a little deeper. Today, I feel exactly how those people with the wide-eyed wonder looked. I couldn’t be a puppy raiser now. But then, I was given the grace to do the right thing at the right time.

This makes me even gladder that I did it when I could.

Izzie and trainer with his “in for training” class.

Proverbs 15:23 tells us that a word in due season is a good thing. I think the same is true for actions. There is a season for every activity under heaven. A time to raise puppies, and a time to do something else. (See Ecclesiastes 3)

During this valentine’s season when so much attention is placed on the emotion of love, let me suggest we place some attention on the practicality of love. There is something we can do right now, in this season, that we may not be in a position to do again.

Let’s do it.

Whatever our hand finds to do right now, we should do it with all our might. Chances are it won’t seem like a big thing. It will simply be something that we can do, wherever we are, with what we have. It may even be something we always wanted that ends up being a unique gift to someone else… and to us.

Izzie’s graduation photo.

That was certainly the case with Izzie. A year after we both left for separate schooling, Izzie went on to serve as a faithful guide alongside his partner in Tennessee. His graduation picture remains one of my most prized possessions.

It was an opportunity I could have missed. That realization encourages me to look around me now. In a different time and a different place, there is something here for me to do.

Take an action in due season.

Faith Like a Squeaky Toy

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Dog with stuffed toy.
This post first appeared at inspireafire.com.

Have you ever wondered what’s inside a dog’s squeaky toy?

Of course not. Because if you’ve ever had a dog with a squeaky toy, you’ve already seen the inside.

Dog toy stuffing.

Do you know how you got to see the inside? Because the outside was completely chewed up and destroyed.

Some days I feel like that squeaky toy.

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is in us (2 Corinthians 13:5). Unlike the inside of my dog’s squeaky toy, I don’t know what that looks like.

Unfortunately, I suspect the way we find out is very similar.

Dog chewing on toy.

In times of trial, I question why God is making me go through this. I feel like I am being ripped apart and chewed up. Or maybe like I’ve been swallowed whole and am navigating a long, dark, winding passage that, quite frankly, stinks.

The reality is even worse than the metaphor.

I argue with myself – whether God is causing the suffering, whether I brought this on myself, whether there is any way to get through this dark night of the soul any faster, whether I am going to make it out at all.

My arguments go nowhere. But this is what the Bible says: That when we are tested by various trials – various fiery trials – the genuineness of our faith is being tested. And not just tested in the sense of does it exist and how strong is it, but tested in the sense of testing gold in the furnace. This means burning off the dross and refining our faith into something even more precious than gold.

Faith, I am coming to see, is not just revealed in the furnace of our trials, but actually made.

“I want a faith like that,” I used to think when I witnessed individuals who seemed to have an unwavering connection to God. I knew it was a dangerous prayer even when I said it, but I didn’t know it was going to hurt so, so bad.

Dog chewing on toy.
It is not always easy to get to see inside.

I do not have an unwavering faith. But I am in the furnace. And I am clinging to this promise: that we are being guarded not by our own feeble strength of faith, but by God’s power. At the last time, the goal of our faith, like a chewed up squeaky toy, is going to be revealed. And that goal is the salvation of our souls (1 Peter 1:5-9).

Christ dwells within us now. Peter (1:8) urges us that though we have not seen Christ, we can love Him, and though we do not see Him now, we can believe in Him. Some day we will see Him face-to-face, but we don’t have to wait until then to know He is here.

Maybe we just have to listen for the squeak.

Sometimes it’s hard to hear over the roar of the furnace, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I’m Not Looking for a Dog

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This post first appeared at inspireafire.com

Crate Bars

So what am I doing here?

The first time my answer was simple. I carried in a nearly new bag of dog food. Some flea and tick prevention. A bag of dental chews with just two missing.

“Do you take donations?” I asked the girl behind the counter.

“Of course we do,” she replied. “Thanks so much for thinking of us.”

And since I was already there, I signed the waiver holding the animal shelter harmless, and wandered back through the kennels.

Crate

That was the first time.

Three days later, my answer is much more complicated. I’m still not looking for a dog, but I cannot stay away from this place. With its noise and smell and sense of desperation, it is an unlikely place to find what I am looking for. And yet I know, instinctively, that here I am looking for the same thing each of these dogs is looking for.

Hope.

It is a terrible place to look. Amidst fear. Amidst rejection and abandonment. And yet isn’t that the very place to look?

Who hopes for what he already has? Paul asked. Hope that is seen is no hope at all. But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:24)

Hope is found in the most unexpected places. Because it is pain that begets hope.

I know this, as I look at the bars separating me from the inside. The spilled dog food, the soiled toys, the little touches that cannot hide the dismal nature of these holding pens.

Hope is not found in the sunshine; it is not needed there. Hope is found in the shadows.

The staff here know that I am just looking. Looking at cages. Looking at the lives inside of them. And looking at freedom.

Cartoon Dog & Hearts

Tags appear even as I wait: “On hold for someone special – adoption pending.” One staff member tells me he started just over a month ago, and already most of the dogs that were here when he started have been adopted.

This is both unbelievable and wonderful to me.

This place – this frightening and confusing and horrible place – can be the start of a beautiful new beginning.

If that is true for these cast-off canines, could it not also be true for me? And for you?

We have a Heavenly Father who is not only our supreme caretaker, but who can break off chains and knock down prison walls. When Israel was at one of the lowest points in their history and held captive in Babylon, God sent a word to them through the prophet Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

While this particular proclamation was to Israel, the premise is true for us today. Our Heavenly Father has told us that he has good plans for us, and they are still unfolding. Because of His great love for us we are not consumed. He will teach us in the darkness how to hope. He will prod us in the present toward our future.

Hope can be found even in a cage. Do not forget this.

Blackberry Season

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Once upon a time I made the mistake of giving my dog a blackberry.

In order to understand the seriousness of this mistake, you have to understand something about my dog.  You see, my dog Marly seems to think that God was talking exclusively to her when He said in Genesis 1:30: “To every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”

Marly loves every kind of green (and other colored) plant.  I first discovered this when she was just a puppy.  She was begging in the kitchen while I was peeling an orange, and knowing that most dogs hate citrus, I decide this was a wonderful training opportunity.  I tossed her a piece of orange, expecting her to grimace and step away.  Instead, she snatched it up and begged for more.  Ever since then, anytime that first whiff of citrus is released from a peeling orange, her four feet come skidding into the kitchen.  That plan backfired.

In addition to oranges, Marly loves grapefruit, bananas, green beans, potatoes, squash, carrots, apples, blueberries and – you guessed it – blackberries.

 

Marly the dog looking eagerly at a blackberry bush.

She’s got that crazed blackberry picking look in her eyes!

I wish you could have seen the look on her face the day she suddenly realized that this amazing delicacy was growing all alongside one of our favorite hiking trails.  Her eyes sprung open in astonishment as she watched me pluck a berry from the bush and stick it in my mouth.  Next thing I knew, she had dived into the middle of the bushes and was stripping the berries directly into her mouth.

Marly the dog eating blackberries from a bush.

Marly stripping blackberries from a bush.

“Hey!” I shouted.  “Save some for me!”

The only response was the shaking of first one bush and then another as she progressed deeper into the berry patch.

Every summer now we have a ritual, walking along our favorite trail, both of us scoping out the slowly ripening berries.  It’s a race to see which one of us can find the first ripened berry.  I admit that sometimes I resort to diversion tactics.  “Look over there!” I say, pointing to a small bush.  Then while she goes bounding one way, I run in the opposite direction, picking berries as quickly as I can.  I feel I am justified in such tactics; she is a much faster picker than me, so I need all the help I can get.

In peak season, there is always enough for both of us.  We may even pick companionably from the same bush.  She burrows underneath and gets all the deep and low berries; I pick high, only occasionally having to yell at her to stop shaking the bush because she’s making it hard to pick.

The head of Marly the dog, obscured by bushes, as she picks berries.

Marly is not afraid to burrow under a bush to get at the berries I can’t reach.

Blackberry season never lasts very long, but it’s a season I embrace with two hands and four paws.  Like other good things in life, it is one of God’s good gifts to us.  He did, after all, give us every green plant for food, and what a wonderful variety he provided!

It is hard to believe that we are already staring down the slope toward the end of summer.  With its long days and outdoor activities, summer always seems to go by quickly.  But then, I often find myself saying that about every season.  Are you having a busy summer?  Take some time amidst all the action to simply enjoy the gift of sunshine and flowering plants that God has placed around us.  Then, walk with Him into the next season. 

A berry-stained hand and dog paw.

Partners in the berry patch.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).