ive been through alot of struggles in my life. pretty much could say "been there, done that" in any situation. some experiences i handled with more grace than others, but honestly i can admit that to this day not one was handled properly. by properly i mean that i dont think i learned exactly what i needed to learn. our entire lives we are a student. some have different teachers than others. i enrolled in the school of christ as a kid, and although ive snuck out countless times, im still on the roster. how many times have i stood in the corner, had to write 100 times on the chalkboard a promise for better choices.... i honestly dont know. seriously, until this season in my life i can say i never had my eyes open wide enough to even know i was facing retribution. the "theology" definition for retribution is "punishment or reward distributed in a future life based on performance in this one." ive never believed god to "punish" anyone for any reason. but it is now that i finally understand what all this "obey, learn, mold, teach, pattern for living, control, warfare, blah blah blah,..." christianity mumbo jumbo is. all the comparisons in the bible that are nice and pretty, that people make songs out of and posters and base sermons on. "he is the potter, we are the clay." "he is the precious metal refiner, we are raw silver" "he is the shepherd, we are the lost sheep" lovely sayings, they make nice cards. and to think that my whole life could have gone by and i never would have understood, i never would have truly known my teacher.
im an animal person. always have been. ive always had dogs, cats, and almost always lived on a farm and had horses and other various barnyard critters. ive seen some come and go. cried over some, and some, not so much. ive never been a foofy foof animal person though. give me a big ole mutt to lay in the yard and mean fat tom cat to scratch my ankles and eat mice. well, until recently. we aquired, in the most fate filled string of events, a tiny little lap dog. the most typical of all foofy foof, a poodle. i didnt even want him. my husband said before we even saw him "no" in his serious daddy voice. you should have seen the dog. he was a mess. he was on his second foster home from a rescue and you could tell. poor thing. but how can you stand in the way of destiny when it took a treacherous tornado, 50 art students, a freezing cold rainy day, hours of windy country roads, and unexplained vomit, which led us straight to the house where the hot mess of a foof was waiting for us.
some how i changed my mind. some how daddy said yes. somehow we ended up with this fluffy boy in our truck. that day our family changed. that was the day the kids prayers were answered. they had been praying for a baby brother. i had been counter praying that because i know how powerful a childs prayers can be. i believe god answered us all that cold rainy day in the hills of eastern kentucky.
i then suddenly was caught up in the world of dog sweaters and fancy gourmet dog food. i became a person who doesnt drive down the road without their lap dog. i was a baby step away from that weird lady pushing a stroller around with a dog in it. and i was fine with it.
life continued as normal, for almost a whole year. to me it was daily grind. same stuff, different day. in and out, up and down... what i didnt realize was that i was in my jesus class room all along. i think i had fallen asleep in class. it wasnt the routine i thought it was. god was studiously working on a masterpiece, me, all along. his artisan hands stroking paint on a canvas, gently, yet purposeful. funny, that god guy. he's always up to something. he knows how it all ends up and he knows who he needs to make it happen. the cool thing about art is there are no mistakes. you can have an end result in mind, and maybe some paint drips or mixes together to make an ugly shade, but you can just paint over it, or go a different direction with your ideas. so he stands there with his brush in hand, a palette of the most beautiful colors of paint, and the canvas in front of him that looks just like me. he is painting and working and concentrating and somehow i am completely unaware.... i think it is because his strokes were too gentle. and he knew that. but he didnt want to hurt me unless i was ready. unless he knew i wanted to take the next step. who knew it would take roughly 28 years for me to open the door for him.
something else about god. he has his full undivided attention on me, but he is just that same way for all of my bothers and sisters as well. not only is he painstakingly painting me, he is doing the same for all of his other children, all of us. and more than we realize, our paints overlap. and THAT is when it gets beautiful. but just like an amazing pair of steve madden high heels, sometimes beauty hurts. but when you slip those rockin' heels on, you are asking for it. do you keep them on and strut about or do you decide its not worth it and grab your ballet flats instead.... its a choice. a decision we make. and sometimes the decisions are based on emotion. and i have come to learn that the most effective emotion in decision making is anguish and pain. i think it is because these emotions make us the most vulnerable, the most raw, these feelings are what fillet us and expose who we really are. how we react in this emotion is our test.
my church has gone through this emotional time. this time of anguish. through series of events that no one really even knows, god has been painting like a mad man.... so many canvases in front of him, so much paint. hes been bringing people together, and pulling them apart. for reasons only he knows. i made the decision to stick it out. to trust in him no matter what. even though i had my own ideas and thoughts, i had my own opinions and i even had my own paintbrush. in late january i responded to an alter call and i, for the first time, honestly allowed god to use me. i was warned ahead of time that it would be a painful decision, but i accepted the challenge, i laid down my life to be a leader. i felt like it was real. i felt gods touch, i knew he accepted my submission. i just had no idea how quickly he would begin to train me. it was sudden.
the first lesson was me disobeying philippians 2:14 "do everything without complaining or arguing..." god gave me a couple little chances to follow his instruction and i blindly walked right into my own nets. i was caught complaining about doing something, and it cut me like a double edged sword right in the gut. i hurt someone but honestly, it hurt me worse. i can hardly even type this without becoming physically ill. i shared the situation with others and they have assured me it wasnt a big deal, but for some reason, it changed my life. i havent completely stopped complaining, but i will tell you that every time i have a chance to grumble, i have a lead weight of conviction on me and i believe that this is gods paintbrush, over my mouth, leading me to be able to fulfill the second half of the phillipians verse, ..."so that you may become blameless and pure, children of god." its amazing how many times i am tempted to slander someone, to spread bitterness and contempt. amazing. and i never would have even seen that if it wasnt for me getting caught. and it was only through the power of god that i was caught. looking back, god put his hands over my eyes so that i would purposefully get caught in my own impurity. powerful lesson. seriously. i considered this to be an answer to prayer, the one i prayed at the alter. the one about wanting to be molded and used by god even if it hurt. because it hurt. and still does. but, god has more. always has more. we just have to be willing to TAKE the more. i was. i was thankful and humbled by this lesson and submitted even deeper to christ. he took my hand and he pulled me so hard towards him. harder than i would admit to have liked. he took my foofy foof dog from me.
i pause in my complete vulnerability right now. i pause because i am now in the place of emotion that defines me and i am choosing to be aligned with god and who HE wants me to be, not by how my sadness wants me to react.
by another series of events that are nothing short of destiny, doodle is gone. completely 100 % vanished into thin air. my spirit is heavy, faultering, wounded. my soul fills ripped. at the risk of offending anyone who has lost a child i will not compare this grief to theirs. at the risk of discrediting my witness i will not go on a "crazy lady who pushes a dog in a sweater around in a stroller" tangent. but i will say this. that dog had permeated his way into my familys hearts and he was one of us. he was and always will be part of our family, our baby brother. with him being gone, it has damaged us. we grieve his loss with real emotion. emotion that i have never felt before. i am taking the hardest, and i know the reason why. i know that doodle, a foofy foof little grey hot mess of a dog, was one of the colors god painted on my canvas. i know that he was intentionally put in my life so that i could go through what i am going through now to become the person that god meant for me to be all along. i cant tell you the outcome of this chapter in my life. i cant even tell you what tomorrow looks like. but i can tell you that today, god is holding me tight, like his baby, and he set his paintbrush down for just a second so he could rock me and sing to me and kiss my forehead and tell me that im going to be ok. im important enough to him for him to use me and i am not going to let this experience go by, this emotion to go by, without learning from it.
emotions are like dictators. they run our lives and completely force us into a certain style of behavior. im convinced that this is what makes humans so unpredictable, so bizarre, so multifaceted. i know a lot of people, some i know better than others, some i respect more than others, some inspire me, some intrigue me... theres no real pattern for the people that i hold higher than others. its just something about certain people that i am attracted to. i have decided it is because those people on my pedestals have experienced real emotion and they have allowed those feelings to form them into real people. i am so thankful that i am finally able to recognize real emotions and that i am mature enough in my faith to see when god is using these emotions to mold me. god knows who we are. he knows what gets us, he knows our weak spots, our strong spots. he can use what is most important to us to teach us what he needs us to know. my entire life i have been an animal lover. my earliest memories are of me spending the night on the concrete slab of a back porch with stray dogs at the family farm. most of my best memories have an animal in them. so of course god would get me where it counts. of course he would use a dog to teach me how to be a better human. and i cant think of a better dog to use than my doodle. thank you god for blessing my family with doodle. thank you for the 11 months that we were able to spend with him. thank you for all the photos we have with him, for all the memories and stories that we will never lose. thank you for loving me enough to use me. thank you for your answered prayers and for spiritual growth. thank you for the venues to share what i learn with others so that ultimately, your name is praised, and you receive all the glory. thank you for my heart for animals, i know you dont give it to everyone. i praise you even as i suffer, because i know you are in control. i continue to offer myself up to you as a living sacrifice and i dont back down from my desire to be a leader for your kingdom. i love you god, more than doodle. and thats alot. amen
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