Unstuck

My husband had wanted a bird dog for a long time before we finally got one. Alice. She was the most energetic puppy I’d ever encountered. And that was okay with me because my husband was doing freelance design work from home. We’d decided Alice was going to be mostly in his care. But soon after she came home, he was offered a job that sounded too good for us to pass up. He began going to work everyday and that meant…it was me and Alice all day long. And those days did feel so long! I remember bringing in the mail one day and in the blink of an eye, Alice had snatched the envelopes and was ripping them to shreds before I’d had time to react. And one day, I foolishly sat down with a cup of coffee and in half a second Alice had sprung into my lap and left me drenched.

If you know me, you know I like to go through life slowly. Growing up, my brother used to marvel at just how long I could sit in one place. I call it “getting stuck.” I sometimes get stuck sitting in a chair, staring off into space. It can last a really long time. But during the first couple years of Alice’s life, I was thoroughly unstuck. Sitting felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford. I could barely even perch on the arm of a chair before I had to spring back up and wrestle something out of her mouth. 

At one point I decided to take Alice to doggy daycare because I wanted to have a cup of coffee and sit and stare into space, like old times. When I came to pick her up, the exhausted looking lady who met me at the front desk said, “I’ve never seen a dog with this much energy.” This, coming from a woman who spends everyday with energetic dogs. 

Looking back at those years, I immediately smile. Some of God’s provisions are just funny. He does use everything—the good, the bad and the funny. I see how God used that ridiculous dog to wake me up. A slow life is good—people are always saying that. People write books about it and make slow-moving movies about it. But activity is good too. We all need help with our own particular brand of imbalance. I needed a little push and God delivered it in the form of a small, furry tornado named Alice. 

Alice is comparatively calm these days. But yesterday, when she bounced  exuberantly out of the woods toward me I was reminded of her puppy years. “What have you got there?” I asked, bending down to see what she had in her mouth. “You got a stick?” But it wasn’t a stick. It was a long-dead furry something…A chipmunk maybe. It was awful and she was over-the-moon delighted with it. In spite of not wanting to cause a scene in our peaceful neighborhood, I jumped up and down, screamed repeatedly and put my hands over my eyes as she worked hard to swallow the nasty thing whole. I know this is an immature response to a dog with a disgusting choking hazard, but I don’t think I’m going to mature in that way this side of heaven. I haven’t made almost any progress, in that area, since childhood. Thankfully my husband came outside and pried the stiff chipmunk from her stubborn mouth. He was very adult about the whole thing. He works from home now, thankfully. 

Blessings to you today as you search for glimmers of God’s goodness in all things. Some of them are easier to see in retrospect.

~Amy