MOODY

There was a time it seemed important to train my puppies how to eat without slobbering all over the walls.

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MY PRIORITIES HAVE SHIFTED. 

Four words landing on the page as both understatement and proclamation…maybe even confession of the duality that inhabits one who appreciates a kind of cleanliness that brings order to the chaos within.

My recent sleeplessness began when the notion of another Great Dane puppy presented itself [seemingly out of nowhere] as a really good idea.

You would think that JOY would be the accompanying refrain.

YET I HAVE TOSSED AND TURNED OVER THIS DECISION LIKE THE HAUNTING OF A MELODY RUNNING INCESSANTLY THROUGH MY BRAIN.

You might think that my indecision has something to do with worrying about slobber and hair. I am, after all, the one who steps back to admire the orderly scene.

I am also the one who notices beauty in the tiniest detail. And the boy I have chosen out of all the others is a work art, his many faces painted like a Picasso—bold, original, unexpected.

I’m in love without ever meeting him. Not yet. And still there is this angst in the process that is burdensome and complex.

It seems this cancer season has messed with me. Maybe more than I’m willing to admit. It appears my body has grown accustomed to the anxiousness that nearly always accompanies the imparting of good news. And puppies are always good news.

So, I toss and turn in this insistence of mind and body coming to terms with something I can only describe as the illusiveness of hope—
~learning to embrace it even when there are moments that hold little argument in its defense.
~recognizing  it as something both temporal and omnipresent, not either/or but both.

What I’m experiencing goes like this: One minute I’m feeling the best I have in months and the next my lab reports reveal there is so much more work to be done.

IN THIS CONFOUNDING MOMENT, I REMIND MYSELF THAT NOTHING HAS CHANGED OTHER THAN NOW I KNOW—
MY KNOWLEDGE OF MY CIRCUMSTANCE DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT GOD IS DOING AND HAS DONE.

This revelation brings clarity and I feel the hope flooding back in—
Perhaps a puppy IS a good idea, but now I have a responsibility to share with his breeder, exactly where I am.

“My doctor is concerned about a particular number on my lab reports, so perhaps our boy deserves a mama who is unencumbered with these kinds of concerns.”

I press ‘send’ with full expectation that she will agree. And for the next several hours I fall to pieces.

And then, her response comes like an answer to a prayer never said. “Something in my heart tells me he came to this earth as yours.”

” He is necessary, she tells me.” Maybe he’s as necessary as [puppy] breath.

There are many things we think we want. Some we believe we need. And then there are those that are necessary.

When we are confused by the “what next,” He never is. Hope for us is based on a limited understanding. To Him it’s embedded in the nature of all things.

NOTES:

At 6am this coming Tuesday morning I will board a plane in Phoenix with a kennel in tow. And for the first time in all the years of flying the one sitting on the seat next to me will be an eight-week-old Great Dane.

There’s a reason why dogs are considered therapy animals and it's not only because we deem them so. 

Out of eleven puppies, this one was meant for me. His name is Rainy Day Moods. We'll call him Moody. 

Sometimes it is impossible to discern what God has in store until we realize it's necessary to offer up what we want to Him.