Ashley Pharis's Blog
Puppies and Prayer / 07.26.10, 11:04 PM
My husband and I recently acquired a baby puppy to add to our little homestead. Not just a puppy but a 6 week old puppy, the “baby” kind, the kind pet stores won’t sell to you because they know they’re so young and needy that you’ll bring the puppy back in 5 days out of insanity demanding your money back. That’s what we’ve got. And I say “acquired” because we were not out to get a puppy. Actually, we (and by that I mean my husband) had two very clear “dog rules” in our marriage. Rule number one, we would not get a dog during the first 6 months of our marriage to avoid a tumultuous love triangle. That may be extreme, but you never know. And rule number two, we would not get a puppy. We wanted a dog, at least a year old, thus avoiding the difficult baby stages that can drive a dog owner straight to the Humane Shelter, swearing and crying the whole way. But alas, some boys from our neighborhood rescued this little pup and brought her straight to our house remembering that we said we wanted a dog “someday”. Well that “someday” happened to be sooner than we thought when those little chocolate eyes melted my heart.
We’re several weeks into puppy school and I’ve learned a lot. “Puppy dog eyes” really work. Puppies are good training for having a baby, except they don’t wear those convenient diapers. And puppies can also teach you about prayer. Let me expand on that.
We are crate training our pup right now, which means we put her in her crate at night and while we are away from home. Every night when we put her in her crate, she whines and yips in this high-pitched tone that hurts my heart. She doesn’t realize that her being in the crate is a good thing. It keeps her from getting into trouble. She’s not yet ready to be trusted with our home when we are asleep or not around, there’s too many tempting chewable items laying around, and she doesn’t quite have control over her potty skills yet. This is helping her to learn those valuable skills. She doesn’t care, she just wants out!
One night when I was shushing her whines, I thought “Wow, I wonder if we sound like this to God when we pray?” So often I whine and beg and plead to be let out of the situation I am in. It’s not fun. I’m not with all the people I love. It’s not the most comfortable place to be. But God, who I thankfully believe doesn’t find us as annoying as I find my poor little pup, wants us to trust Him. He wants us to realize that right where we are is the safest place. It’s safe because He is with us. It may not be with all our loved ones, it may be scary, it may be for a longer time than we think we can stand. But maybe we’re not ready to be out on our own yet, in the place we think we should be. Maybe we have a few more things to learn before we can get out there. We must trust that God knows and wants what’s best for us. Those times of being in places of pain or discomfort, our “crates”, may actually be God’s protection, even times of shaping and teaching us into His image, His likeness. If we got what we wanted too soon, there’s a chance we could mess it all up without the character-building God has in store for us in our “crate” time. So as we pray, let’s recognize that first; then maybe our whining will turn to singing, praising a God who knows us better than we know ourselves.
I keep hoping that for our dog. We could get a lot of press for a singing dog.
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