Lessons Learned

1 Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;
pay attention and gain understanding.

2 I give you sound learning,
so do not forsake my teaching.

~Proverbs 4:1-2

Friday night, after agreeing to a trial run with a rescue dog, Bo graced his home. The boy was wonderful in asking if “we” could get a new dog. While I joked about his question in a recent post on my blog, it was the right and respectful thing to do. A dog is more of a permanent fixture and as we are planning on combining households in the foreseeable future, it was right to ask my permission.

I stood on neutral ground on the issue. You see, when my children and I are visiting his home, it’s slightly chaotic. No, I take that back. It’s really chaotic. There are four children running around ages 12 to 4, two adults, and my dog, Rhoda. I wasn’t sure that adding a new dog, a puppy at that, would be such a good idea. But the boy was set on getting a dog and I told him that if he wanted another dog, he could get another dog.

Bo arrived and immediately showed us that he was able to climb the fence. Upon climbing the fence he, being a red bone hound and fast, darted across a very busy street and into the adjacent neighborhood. We then determined that we were not able to leave Bo outside unattended. No big, right?

Saturday morning, I arrived to find the heel of one of shoes mangled. I deducted, smartical partical that I am, that Bo had mistaken my shoe for a chew toy. I determined that I’ll just make sure that my shoes are in a place where Bo can’t get them. (Ok, so I also decided that God made Bo chew my shoe so that I could go and get a new pair. Which I did. Ok, so I bought two.) No big, right?

Bo, or Houdini as we affectionately named him, escaped a few more times over the weekend both over the fence and out the front door when we weren’t paying attention. Finally, Wednesday morning, after the latest escape, the boy came to the conclusion that Bo was not the right dog for us.

“You were right. I’ll call Katrina and see if she can come and get him tonight,” he said.

“Why are you telling me that I was right? I never told you that the dog wasn’t a good idea,” I responded. He paused. He was thinking. The boy has a certain pattern of wrinkles that appear on his forehead when he thinks.

“I guess you’re right.”

Later that morning while we were on the phone, I could tell that he was depressed. “I feel like I’ve given up on him,” he said.

“But you haven’t. You’re giving him a chance. You know that it won’t be long before he escapes and takes off across the street and gets hit by a car.”

“You’re right, but I still feel like a butt,” he replied. He continued, “and I knew that getting another dog wasn’t a great idea, but I did it anyway.”

I felt bad for the boy. I knew that he wanted this to work. Shoot, I wanted this to work. I had come, like the rest of our combined clan, to love Bo. He was such a happy dog and he grinned. He would cuddle up with you and if he wouldn’t have been an escape artist, I think he would’ve been perfect for us.

No, I was never keen on the idea of another dog. We struggle keeping everyone de-chaosed as it is and dogs come with expenses that I didn’t think we had, but I was willing to set that aside.  Bo made the boy happy and with the past few months being nothing but trials and tribulations for him, and us, I wanted him to be happy.

The boy’s face was that of someone who was letting his best friend go when I arrived at his house after work. I was heartbroken for him, but I knew that he was making the right decision. I also knew that he was sitting there, racking his brain, attempting to find some way that we could make this work with Bo. As a friend pulled in the driveway and we were distracted, Bo escaped and took off across the street. It was 5:30pm and the height of afternoon traffic.  Bo was hit by a car. Fortunately there was no damage to Bo or the car that he bounced off of, but I believe that the events needed to happen to confirm that the boy had made the right decision.

After the foster mother came to pick Bo up and I had some time to reflect, I thought about God and how He handles situations. How many times has he been up there, staring down at me going, “Heather…I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” but just let me go allowing me to learn and figure out things on my own? Let’s take all of my former relationships. How cool would’ve it have been to tell me, “Heather, I know he’s cute and has a good job, but seriously? Not the right guy for you.”

It wouldn’t matter. You and I both know that I, in my infinite wisdom would’ve retorted, “Pshaw. Don’t worry about me God, I’ve got this one under control.” Because I have said that to Him. When the Holy Spirit moved inside of me, giving me that gut feeling that this wasn’t right, I shrugged it off. “Don’t worry about me, God. I know what I’m doing. It will be okay.”

And if I would’ve said that to the boy, “Hon, I really don’t think it’s going to be a good idea,” he would’ve been hurt, upset, and possibly angry with me because I would be the bad guy. I’d be the one that said no to the new dog. So I sat back, was supportive, and when the decision was made to return Bo, I was here to be encouraging, a voice of reason, and a shoulder to lean on….

Just like God is to me when I’ve done what I thought was best and found out later that I was wrong.

I didn’t look at the boy and say, “I told you so,” and God, no matter how bad you think you’ve screwed up will never tell you that either. All He wants is for you to realize where you goofed, come to Him and ask for forgiveness, and attempt not to make the same mistake again.

Through our time with Bo, I knew that there was a lesson hidden in there somewhere, I just wasn’t sure what it was.

Isn’t it awesome that God uses everything to relay lessons to us? Even rescue dogs.

Amazing isn’t it?