a dog's life.

Here is what I know for certain: God has unending and boundless love for me.
His deep and abiding concern for me never takes a day off, is never dimmed by my thoughtless or careless abuse of His grace and will continue for as long as I live ( and longer).
I came to a deeper and clearer revelation of this in the middle of a moonless night, actually in the very early morning. I was quite awake and on duty, thinking of another, who did not know, could not appreciate how concerned I was for him. My dog tried to rest by my side, but his stomach was bothering him. He had been out already and would need to be walked again, before dawn.
     As I laid there it occurred to me that my wanderings were a bit like my dog Scooter's. I mostly keep him near me, on a leash and in the house, but he has found escaping from the back yard gets him a run around a few blocks where he can search for tidbits in the neighbors garbage. When we are together, there is no scavenging from the trash. As long as the leash is, he can travel, but no further. I protect him from coyotes and from bad choices in dining. As much as I know he loves to run I also know that he has a better life if I keep an eye on him.
    My God keeps an eye on me, wants to walk with me and helps me with my choices also. He most certainly sees that I have a wild side that needs to run and he respects that even when I end up coming back in through the back door, covered in  mud, smelling bad with a piece of old pizza, holding it as if it was a treasure.
   My dog taught me this on a night short on sleep and long on thinking. While he was sick from something weird he ate, I was understanding, patient and willing to get up and go with him because he needed me to watch over him and to spend a little extra time to get him through this self inflicted misery.  Once i laid hold of this way of seeing God's watch-care over me I could not let it go into dreamland. I simply enjoyed letting the love of God wash over me, as He reminded me of my wanderings, my sicknesses, my foolish choices that He had known all about but also allowed so that I would more appreciate when I was safe, in His care, washed and combed, free of the stickers and tangles that would have messed my fur if I were running without restraint.
More to come -