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2007

9th July
Smells

2nd July
Smile

26th June
Waterlogged

11th June
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6th June
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21st May
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May 9th
Stereotypes

May 1st
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Broken

April 16th
Climbing hills

April 9th
The Three Trees

April 2nd
Small but deadly

March 28th
Toby the SuperDog
 

March 19th
Mountains

March 4th
Lone Daffodil

February 26th
Working hours

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Memory

February 12th
Piercings

February 5th
Patience

January 29th
Surprise

January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Toby the SuperDog
28^th March 2007

I am now the proud owner of a dog! I have, somewhat overnight, become a dog obsessed person who has nothing better to talk about than their wonderful, beautiful and obviously perfect (or nearly) hound! The new addition to my household is called Toby and he is a nine month old Dalmatian. He has lovely blue eyes and a cheeky smile, and despite only having him since Friday night, I adore him!

It has all happened suddenly, this dog acquiring malarkey, with one of my youth group approaching me last Tuesday. She wanted to know if I would take their Dalmatian which they got at Christmas, because they needed to get rid of him. Thinking she was joking I said yeah and it all went from there really! It turns out that their other dog (a Staffordshire Bull Terrier) that they’d had for 11 years, had started attacking Toby and they were afraid that if they kept him, he would get seriously hurt. So on Tuesday I agreed to take the dog off their hands and look after him myself, well away from bullying Staffordshire bull terriers (which in my humble opinion are not half has nice as Dalmatians anyway!). I was to pick him up on Friday after youth club. Everything was set.

So Friday arrived and I’d got as much of my house ready for the invasion as I possibly could – Toby’s a big dog and being only 9 months old, will no doubt get bigger….there’s lots of potential for house destruction! I went to youth club as usual and was confronted by an upset girl, not really wanting to give her dog away. Earlier in the week it hadn’t seemed so real, so permanent and now she was getting ready to say goodbye to her dog whilst everyone around her was enjoying table tennis, pool and the tuck shop. What could I say to her? I was really excited about this, I couldn’t wait for youth club to end so I could get my very own dog. She on the other hand was dreading the end of youth club.

I took her home and went inside to fetch my new pet. The whole family said goodbye to the dog, who was oblivious to the fuss he was causing. The father explained to me that it was because they loved Toby so much that they had to let him go. It didn’t stop the tears and the pain of loss though. I felt truly horrible as I drove away from a girl crying for the loss of a dog she loved.

As Toby and I walked together early the next morning I was reminded of the Prodigal Son story that Jesus told. The fact that the father let his son go and mess up big style troubled me – he knew his son was making a mistake and he did nothing to stop him. There was no warning or guilt trip that most parents (or mine at least) have perfected so well, no punishment or threats as the son trotted off into the sunset. Surely that doesn’t speak of love? Surely that speaks of indifference, a lack of concern even, but not love. Yet I couldn’t help coming back again to the words spoken about Toby the night before…..”It is because we love him that we are letting him go.”

It was because the father loved his son that he had to let him go. Keeping him there with him was not an option for the caring dad. Toby’s previous owners loved him so much and they wanted nothing more than to keep him and to love him up close, but they knew, despite it hurting, that this was not the right choice. God loves us so much, just as the father loved the younger son so much, that he lets us go – he lets us mess up, make mistakes, hurt ourselves, get into trouble, and cause problems (all of which we do very effectively!). It is not because he doesn’t care for us that we are free to walk away from him, but in fact the exact opposite. And the real beauty of letting us go is the freedom to return, without reprimand, without accusations, without anger, without arguments, but with the biggest set of open arms you could ever find! What a risk he takes in letting us go, but what a reward for the returning child.