Two Dog Bowls and One Seeking Heart

If you know me very well, you know I adore animals. I've always been an animal lover and even became a vegetarian at the age of five upon the sudden realization that meat comes from a different source than apples.

My love for my own dogs, though, is pretty difficult to put into words.

Sometimes I get the impression people think I'm a little over the top. I don't know what it is that gives me that feeling... perhaps it's the strange looks I get when I dress the dogs up for each holiday, the expression of panic most visitors get when they come over to my house and immediately get licked in the face with puppy kisses, or maybe it's the fact that Maddie sleeps on pillows like a human.

But the fact of the matter is, my dogs are like furry children to me.

Humor me for a second and let me tell you a little about their stories. Maddie was born at the Humane Society. God bless those people. Her mother and father were found wandering around on the side of the road, and her mother was pregnant at the time. Some gracious person picked them up and took them to the Humane Society. In other circumstances, the dogs could've easily been hit by a car or taken to the kill shelter. But they weren't.

All the puppies were adopted within weeks from the Humane Society, but Maddie was returned about five months later for tripping her elderly owner. That just so happened to be about the time my husband and I were looking for a puppy. And the rest is history.

A few months ago, though, we decided Maddie needed a friend. I'm a huge believer in animal rescue, as there is currently a terrible problem with pet overpopulation in America, so naturally I started researching dogs at various local rescues.

I didn't want a shelter dog (from a kill shelter) because shelter dogs have a stigma. They're not always vaccinated. They sometimes come with emotional baggage. And let's face it, kill shelters are terribly sad.

But then I found Schroeder, my handsome purebred Cocker Spaniel, and he changed all that. We took a chance on him, and oh, what a glorious "chance" it turned out to be.

So you can see how my dogs teach me daily about redemption. They came from awful situations, and now they're sleeping on Brookstone blankets. At least, when we're not looking.

That's where this blog fits in.

Maddie has this obsession with their food bowls. She wants their food to be in both bowls. If one bowl has food but the other doesn't, she will paw at the empty bowl until someone comes to fill it up. So the other day, there I am, sitting on the couch and watching TV, and Maddie walks over to her food bowls and proceeds to shamelessly paw at the empty one in an effort to get my attention. I told her, "Maddie, you have plenty of food in the other bowl. Eat out of that one." Reluctantly, she walked over to it and ate from it.

And in that moment, I thought to myself, how many times does God say to me, "Ashley, you have plenty of food in the other bowl. Eat out of that one."? Sometimes we get so distracted with what we think is the perfect means of sustenance that we miss out on the bigger bowl. We're so filled with discontent that it blinds us from seeing provision.

In what ways do you find yourself focusing on the empty bowl, and how has God called you to a bigger one He's already provided?

A Tale of Mr. Lizard and Redemption

So, tonight I was enjoying a lovely evening with my mom, puppies, and Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama (How cute is her hair in that movie, anyway?) when suddenly I spotted an unexpected guest on my multicolored doormat: Mr. Lizard.

I should begin by saying that I've had a great sensitivity to life ever since I was a child. At the mature age of five, I decided I wanted to become a vegetarian--soon as I realized what meat was. And guess what? I've been meat-free ever since, almost twenty years now.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I see Mr. Lizard, who usually greets me from the wreath outside my door, inside my house. I like talking to these creatures, not touching them. He scurried into the closet and inside the bottom compartment of the vacuum cleaner. So I took an old t-shirt, wrapped it around that part of the vacuum so he couldn't escape, and proceeded to carry the whole thing outside. Foolproof, right?

Wrong.

I carefully set the full-sized red vacuum outside, and all I could see at this point was the tip of Mr. Lizard's tale. I brushed it with a random Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupon I happened to have laying around, and the lizard doesn't move.

So I brushed the tail again. And again, and again. But he still didn't move.

And then I realized what happened. When I moved the vacuum cleaner, I smushed him.

I carried the contraption back inside the house, returned it to the closet, and slumped into my couch. Then I looked at my dog Schroeder and explained the whole thing. He looked back at me, so concerned, and I started crying.

I kept picturing Mr. Lizard's tail and how it didn't move when I touched it, how I was the one responsible for that. It would've been easier had I run over him accidentally with my car, because then I would've had to keep going, and I never would've seen him. But I did see him, and he was motionless, and something about that was terrifying, particularly because I knew I was at fault.

Then, because I sometimes get irrational thoughts, I figured I'd check just one more time to make sure he was still dead.

And guess what?

He wasn't.

His little green body was clinging to the side of the closet wall, and I swear he looked terrified. I was shocked. Here I was, confessing my heart to Schroeder and even crying over Mr. Lizard's tragic passing, and meanwhile, he was having a little party as he tried to decide whether he wanted to squeeze inside the Apples to Apples box or the Lord-of-the-Rings-themed Risk. And let's be honest, how do you choose between those two?

What followed was a string of rescue attempts--including but not limited to my using a hanger to help him down and screaming like the stylist dyed my hair orange when he actually climbed onto it. Ultimately, though, you'll be relieved to know Mr. Lizard found shelter in last year's Easter basket, into which he ran directly before I carried him and the Easter basket safely to the front porch.

And I realized, what I was mourning, God was in the process of redeeming.

Okay, so maybe that sounds a little dramatic...this is a lizard we're talking about, after all...but the lizard is really more of a figure than anything else.

Is there anything in your life that you've given up on because it looks like hope is lost? Maybe it's a lot more serious than a lizard in the house. Don't despair; God is always in the process of redeeming that which we've lost. It's only when we really give up control that healing begins.