All Dogs Go To Heaven

I have spent the last ten years following the lead of a beautiful dog named Georgie. I learned more about unconditional love (and biting) from this little stinker than anyone I’ve ever known. Georgie has shared some of my most personal moments of triumph and heartbreak along with some of my most embarrassing scenarios. I can see the wisdom in God designing these creatures without the ability to talk so they can be our “keepers of the secrets”, (not to mention who wants a chatty dog keeping them up all night?) But make no mistake; even without words Georgie would express his opinion. If Georgie objected to any command, he would throw himself across his pillow and pout like a rebel without his paws. In his later years he became the guardian of my well being and self-appointed top dog. If I worked too late at night, he would stomp into the room huffing until I turned off the computer and headed to bed. He also chimed like Big Ben at 5pm everyday to “subtly” remind me it was time to walk. In many ways he saved my life by forcing me to keep a regular schedule of meals and exercise.

Just like the rest of my family members, Georgie and I shared some hilarious memories. I still laugh out loud when I think about the day I caught him stealing my socks as I yelled “Drop it Monkeyboy!” at the exact time the trash man was picking up the trash. The trashman thought I was yelling at him while Georgie tried to muffle his giggles with a bark but I heard him. He was quite the prankster. I could almost swear he pushed me the day I fell in the man hole. That Son of Lassie was no help at all. Georgie was on his back laughing while I had to crawl out of the hole and drag home one bloody leg like the Bride of Frankenstein. It is no wonder that I took his medicine by mistake thinking it was a piece of cheese.

Animals hold a special place in God’s kingdom. God created animals even before man. He designed dogs to think, feel and express joy in their own way. A wise friend told me that God created our pets with a shorter life span for a reason. I think that it might be even harder on them to lose us, than for us to lose them. It is the loss of innocence, of companionship and unconditional love. Surely all dogs go to heaven. It is with deep sorrow that Georgie was laid to rest this week due to health problems and chronic pain. I will end this story with the simple prayer that has been on my heart since his passing, “Lord help me be the person my dog thinks I am. Amen.”

Loving Family

I wasn’t born on a lamebrain planet. Perhaps I was transported at age three after a head-whacking fall off the kitchen counter while making a peanut-butter sandwich. (Thus began a life long pattern of self-inflicted suffering and snacking.)

I started out in a Loving family, the middle daughter of an architect/painter and a clever well-read homemaker. I can trace parts of who I am back to my circles of influence. (Okay, a lot of people just denied knowing me.) The ever-changing, zigzagging map of my life has been formed by “family”, whether it was self chosen or God given relationships. So what makes a family? There is: closer than family, adopted family, church family, work family, spiritual family, core family, like family and Loving family. Some people who seem like family stay for a season then fall away. Sometimes I attempt a common goal like the workout-but-never-lose-weight group. (I probably shouldn't have eaten pizza after exercise class but it's part of my self-inflicted suffering and snacking compulsion.)

One of the first groups I joined as a girl was the youngest level of the Girl Scouts called The Brownies. I joined thinking it had something to do with making brownies to eat. I soon discovered it was about earning badges by accomplishing goals. Because of that experience I can sew on a button with minimum bleeding while making chocolate toast with minimum burning. (Seeing a pattern yet?)

I have been a participant in all manner of groups since then: track team, volley ball manager, high school sorority, Singles or Suffer (SOS), Prayer Babes, Club Read and various church memberships just to name a few. Each of these "like family" groups shaped me physically, mentally, spiritually; bruising, building, and blessing me all the way. And in the reoccurring theme of my life there was plenty of snickering, sobbing, stuffing; giggling, grieving and gorging.

They say that “friends are family you choose” but our core family is by God’s choosing. I believe He put us in families for a reason. Realizing Jesus was born into a family changed my life. He could have appeared on earth any time as a full grown man. There is something about this life long family connection that is an important process to God. It is the first place where we learn to communicate and to sacrifice. Jesus is our perfect example of both.

I am especially thankful for the Loving family that God chose for me. There will always be at least one lamebrain family member and unfortunately....it's me! Since my family can’t get away from me so easily they might as well endure the suffering and pass the snacks, preferably brownies please.

Telemarketer, Tell A Sin

I think a lot about forgiveness. It’s a big deal in the Christian faith and definitely one of The Essentials. I need forgiveness for telling my sister there was nothing stuck in her teeth...when there was. I need forgiveness for listing my weight as only 100 pounds on my driver’s license...when it wasn’t. And I need forgiveness for putting that telemarketer to “hold on” while I went out to make a ham sandwich. (Okay, that one should be exempt in the book of sins.)

I started to learn about mercy at an early age concerning the giving and receiving of compassion. At six years old, I had to forgive my older sister Toni for promising me, on a sweltering summer day, that I would never have to have another shot if I rode my bicycle around the block ten times. I relived the untrueness of that promise last year when I fell in a rusty man hole and still had to get a tetanus shot. When I became the older sister, I had to ask for forgiveness from my sister Sheri for making only a sarcastic one word reply of “SO!” to every statement she made when she was six years old. (Apparently like the mark of The Beast, age six is a pretty rough year in our family.) SO!

All sins are considered equal even though some transgressions leave a deeper impression. A silly prank is easy to forgive. To be unkind is harder to forgive and nearly impossible to forget. Try as I may, I cannot justify speaking harsh words. I cringe at the meanness I am capable of doing. One scorching statement can leave a lasting scar long after the healing of reconciliation. There are bells I cannot un-ring and foul words that will hang in the air long after they are spoken.

God has a sense of humor and may allow me to walk around with food in my teeth or even let me fall in a man hole. But the loving kindness of the one true God will never spew the word “SO” at my confession of sins. The compassion of the Creator is my example of perfect reconciliation. Through the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, my sins are pardoned. Yes, forgiveness is a bottom line essential element in the Christian faith. I continue to keep the lines of communication open to work on giving and receiving grace, one telemarketer at a time.

Adornments Of Easter

Yellow dress, white shoes, pearl necklace. . . and that’s just last year's Easter outfit! Easter has its own style and color that parallels the blossoming of spring. Like a parent who can’t bear to favor one of their children over another, I cherish each holiday equally but for different reasons. Each one is a mixed blessing of the sacred and the secular, yet I can appreciate both aspects and not feel conflicted. I have no problem snacking on a chocolate bunny all the way to the holiest church service of the year.

My childhood Easters are now speckled memories of patent leather shoes, fidgeting like a bunny in church and finding (then re-hiding, then losing) Easter eggs. One memory that stands out is the Easter I spent in the hospital with a broken arm after showing a friend my new circus maneuver: a monkey-like dismount off a clothes line pole. After anesthesia, I became violently ill and had to revisit the multitude of candy eggs I had eaten earlier in the day. I don’t eat candy eggs anymore; neither does anyone who witnessed that technicolor spectacle (and possibly not anyone who is reading this story.)

Like all holidays, the hardest part for a child is the night before the big day, the darkest hour before the dawn. Eventually the sun bursts through with excitement and the fulfillment of wishes. It is a life lesson that has resounded since the Resurrection. How let down and discouraged the followers of Jesus must have felt in the evening hours of Friday and Saturday. Then HOPE in all its brilliance rose so perfectly on Sunday morning with the Risen Lord. It is the constant message of encouragement that I cling to. When I go through the bleakest of Friday nights, I have to remember that Sunday morning will shine again.

Now I see the deeper adornments of Easter:
Yellow like the beaming dawn of Resurrection,
White like the brilliant robe of an angel in the empty tomb,
Pearls like the wisdom of the gift of salvation.