Lessons Learned in a Shelter

This has been one of those springs. You know, the kind when you have to deal with issues you never thought in a million years would confront you.

Tuesday our Mason chased her last bunny rabbit. She was our first child and the only dog our children had owned. We often joked that we started to have kids because we hadn’t killed the puppy and she’d actually turned out really well.

On top of the miscarriage, losing Mason was a lot to deal with for Abigail and Jonathan. In many, many ways, this loss was much more real. They’d wrestled with Mason, hugged on her, taken her for walks. The baby was an idea, an exciting one but still an idea of things to come.

Our house has seemed horribly empty this week without someone to greet us each time we came home. So yesterday afternoon, we headed to a local shelter. We didn’t intend to bring home a puppy, but we did. Isn’t she cute?

As we spent time at the shelter, I was reminded of why I am so glad that God loved each of us enough to send His Son just for me. Or you. Or your neighbor. If He’d selected who to love like we selected our puppy, it would be a truly scary world.

We left a lot of great dogs behind. We only had room for one. God has unending room for each of us in heaven.

We didn’t want to spend a lot of time retraining an older dog who might have quirks we couldn’t quickly identify. God delights in teaching us about Himself and pruning our character.

Some of the dogs were too big. Or too energetic. Or too needy. With two small kids, we carefully weighed the personalities and other issues of the dogs. This one had no training and was two. That meant too much work.

This one was bigger than Jonathan. This one had too much energy and while trainable would scare Jonathan. Ahh. This one seems perfect.

Fortunately, God doesn’t require perfection from us. Instead, He knows that the only way to become perfect is through His Son Jesus. It’s only when I’m covered in His blood that I can stand in the throne room of heaven. Not because of a single thing I’ve done. But because when God looks at me, He sees Jesus. He also sees me as His perfect creation. And that’s enough.

And I’m so grateful. Because on my own, I could never measure up.