Just Be

First things first ... there's a wiener dog trying really hard to lay his head on my keyboard as he twists and turns in my lap, alternating between pawing at me with his tail threatening to wag off of his backside, and trying desperately to plant a wet dog kiss on my mouth. I've been trying to teach him for ... oh, a year or so ... to only lick my chin ... um, suffice it to say he's not learning that lesson very well at all. Julie, on the other hand, is being the perfect lady and is stretched out next to me on the couch with one paw behind my back and her big old head resting calmly on my shoulder. Those two dogs are as different as day and night ... there is nothing similar about them except that they both have fur. Julie is big, and Ollie is little. Julie is calm, and Ollie is active. Julie is old, and Ollie is young. Julie is blond, and Ollie is brown. Julie pees a lot, and Ollie must have a bladder the size of a horse. Julie would eat until she was sick and licks up every crumb of her food, and Ollie only eats until he is full and leaves the rest. And yet, in spite of all their differences, those two dogs love each other and they love me. And I love them right back.

I've long believed that God uses my hound dogs to teach me lessons, or sometimes to reinforce a lesson that he's put before me through some other avenue. That's definitely the case today ... God has used Julie and Ollie to make sure I follow an instruction given to me on Wednesday evening from my new doctor, and that I learn the lesson He has for me within her instruction. At the end of my appointment, she told me that for the next week she wanted me to ... just be. "Take a break from beating yourself up; take a break from trying to live up to the expectations others have of you; take a break from fighting the battle that is raging within your mind. Take the next week and ... just be. Nothing more, nothing less ... just be." She followed that instruction with some additional homework (including completing the things I decided were too hard and didn't do from the week before), which in my mind seemed to be a bit contradictory to her instruction to just be. Just being seems to not include doing homework if you ask me.

Now here's where Julie and Ollie come in ... since I'm sure you were wondering. I've spent a good deal of time today stretched out on the couch reading a book the doctor asked me to read a couple of weeks ago ... yeah, yeah, I know, but at least I'm finally caving in and reading it. It struck me as I watched Julie and Ollie playing or sleeping or climbing on me that they don't have to think about being dogs ... they just are. They don't beat themselves up because they aren't cats or because they aren't the same as they were when they were pups. I honestly don't think they spend one minute of their doggie lives feeling like they aren't living up to my (or anyone else's for that matter) expectations of them. Their minds are free from any battles or conflicts or turmoil or stress. They just are. Nothing more, nothing less ... they just are. And in just being ... they are content and at peace. Yep, it's just like God to use my dogs to cement a truth He has for me ... just like Him to put that truth in front of me in both human and canine ways ... just like Him.

Now that I think about it, I can't help but think how difficult that is for so many of us ... to just be. To just be the men and women God created us to be ... to just be in His love ... to just be in His grace ... to just be in His mercy ... to just be in His forgiveness. We get so caught up in the day-to-day ups and downs of living, in the busy-ness of all we have to do, in trying to measure up to whom others expect us to be, in our own troubles and problems ... we get so entangled in life that we no longer even know how to ... just be. And I think it probably saddens God's heart that we can't or won't or have forgotten to ... just be in Him.

Just be, friends ... just be.