My two dogs Julie and Ollie love to play tug of war ... they love, love, love to play tug of war. They love to play the game with me, and they love to play the game with each other. I buy them a heavy, thick braided dog rope for the game, one of the extra-long, extra-tough ones with knots on both ends and in the middle that Julie can't chew through and that gives them enough length so they can both hold on with their teeth. The ropes last a pretty long time, and Julie hasn't managed to chew through one yet. But ... with all the chewing and tugging by sharp dog teeth, eventually the ropes begin to fray and they start losing strings. Those loose strings end up in two places ... scattered on my carpet and dangling from the mouths of my dogs, with the end result being me picking up the strands from the carpet or prying open one big dog mouth and one little dog mouth to retrieve the threads so that my hounds don't get choked. And the funny thing is that I perform those actions for a good long while before I finally cave in and go buy a new rope for the dogs.
Last night as I was stretched out on the floor pulling strings from Ollie's mouth, Julie trotted over and stood almost on top of me with the rope in her mouth trying to get me to play some more. "Julie, stop," I said, "I'm trying to get this stuff out of Ollie's mouth. Move, girl." Julie being Julie and thus always reluctant to stop playing, she immediately shook her head from side to side and smacked me in the face with one of the knots at the end of the rope. I rolled over and grabbed the rope and yelled, "No! Drop it!" which of course meant that she tugged with all her might, I lost my grip on Ollie's mouth, and they were quickly back into play mode. Propping myself up on my elbow to watch my two hounds going at it (my left elbow, because my right shoulder still hurts), I started thinking about tying knots in ropes and about how many times recently I've said, "I'm at the end of my rope." And every time I say those words, I think about what my dad used to say ... "When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
The truth is I've been tying lots and lots of knots over the last few months, trying as hard as I can to hold on to my fraying, string-shedding rope. And I decided this evening as I was walking with Ollie in the cold evening air that I'm going to have to find a different trick to keep me hanging on ... the knot in the rope thing isn't working out very well for me. So with every step I took tonight, my tears fell like rain and I prayed ... God, I need something other than the knots in the rope to hang on to ... I need You to show me the trick to making it through another day ... show me, God ... tell me, God ... I'm at the end of my rope. And with every step I took, His love surrounded me, His arms cradled me, His voice spoke to me ... Oh, my child, you don't need knots or tricks ... you don't even need to hold on to the rope at all ... because I'm holding you. I've got you, Terrie, I've got you.
I know I've said it countless times, but God really does live out on my trail, friends, He really does. It's not about me holding on to all the ropes of life at all ... it's about Him holding on to me. It's not about me trying to come up with some new trick to get through each day ... it's about trusting Him to carry me all the way. It's knowing ... really, really knowing ... that He's got me ... He's got me.
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