Men, if you ever want a first hand lesson in appreciation, have your wife break her foot.
That’s exactly where Joelyn and I found ourselves this Spring – a break small enough to avoid surgery and a cast but big enough to warrant an “off your feet” physician’s order.
I suddenly found myself busier than I could ever have imagined. Laundry was added to the Sunday routine. Vacuuming to Mondays and Fridays. Plant watering on Wednesdays. Walking the dogs for 45 minutes every morning and evening. And so on. The level of my busyness struck home when I found myself consistently carrying groceries in at midnight.
By the end of the second week, my 5 a.m. to midnight schedule was taking its toll. In addition to running by the company bank and my personal bank on the way home that Friday, I had to stop by the grocery store for a few forgotten items as the Chapel Oaks Youth were coming over for a Sabbath School breakfast the next morning.
Meanwhile, our dogs – one-year-old Beagles named Tuck and Andy – weren’t having a very good week either. Joelyn couldn’t walk them or take them out for bathroom breaks. So between their morning and evening walks with me, they were being thrown in the garage. They were bored, ready to run and into trouble.
I arrived home to find foam insulation chewed off of the garage door and a lawn chair pulled down and being chewed on. I scolded them properly, put the lawn back up, cleaned up the insulation and went into the house to put groceries away. But the dogs weren’t done.
When I returned to the garage less than 10 minutes later to let Tuck and Andy out, things got ugly. The lawn chair was back on the ground and being ripped, chewed and torn in every imaginable way. And I lost it.
Every pent-up emotion. Every ounce of exhaustion. Every frustration came pouring out at those dogs. I don’t yell often. But I really got my money’s worth in this time. The girls showed up to observe. Joelyn hobbled to the door to defend the dogs. I don’t know how long I kept yelling at the dogs, but it was long enough and loud enough to mobilize my neighbor Todd from several houses down into suggesting that we all ought to sit out on the driveway and just relax that evening! Throughout the ordeal, Andy slumped under the truck, shaking from nose to tail. Tuck just stood in front of me, peeing all over the place. Undeserved recipients of my loss of control. Adding insult to injury, I crated them that evening without a walk.
As I came down the steps the next morning, two balls of fur wiggled and squirmed at the crate’s door. Not to get outside for an overdue walk. But to get out of the crate to greet me, lick my face, jump all over me and hug me. Undeserved forgiveness. Undeserved love. All of my bad actions forgotten.
Perhaps it’s man who is made in the image of God. But it must be dogs that are made in the image of His soul. For God tells us in Isaiah 43:25 that “I am He that blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”
Thanks Lord for sending my furry friends to help me understand your grace a little more clearly.