What are you dragging?

I have a little long-hair Chihuahua puppy.  She is not really a puppy, approaching her ninth birthday in November.  That makes her sixty-three in human years.  She has a good life.  She is an inside puppy, and she is spoiled.  Stephen, my hubby gives her treats every time she turns around.  Yes, she is spoiled.  She travels with us, and last week I bought a ‘puppy purse,’ as I had to take her to a class I was attending, then to the country for the weekend.  I put in her favorite toys and the little sheepskin that she sleeps on.  I must confess, I spoil her too.

Today, when I came home from work, I opened the utility room, and called her to the back door. She stays in the utility room while her humans are at work.  Usually I hear the clitty-clats of her toenails on the hard wood kitchen floor as she skips to go outside to do her business.  Today, she was silent.

I stood at the open patio door, calling her, thinking that maybe she was sleeping.  I waited a few moments, and then I heard her.  Not her usual tippy tap, but more of a step-slide-step noise.   I looked down, and I saw that she had her toenail caught in the sheepskin.  She had dragged it out of her bed,  and was heading out the door in a belabored manner.

You know, we have all heard it said that the pets take on the mannerisms of their owners.  As I knelt down to disentangle Emma from her blanky, I caught another glimpse of heaven.  I thought about how much I tend to keep clinging to the things that bring me comfort.  Yes, the sheepskin was nice to sleep on, but it caused Emma some trouble as she tried to take it on her new adventures.  I thought about how I try to hang on to the past things that bring me comfort when the Lord is leading me, pushing me to new horizons.  I wondered if my ‘baggage’, while comfortable in my ‘crate’ of routine, might not be holding me back as I press on to new adventures.

I have confessed before, and I confess again, I do not like change.  I go into it kicking and screaming, and of course, I like to take my ‘blanky’ with me.  It is scary going into a new unknown.  I now realize that my guardian angel is shaking his head, wondering why I need my ‘stuff.’   He has the vantage point of heaven, and he can see that my ‘stuff’ is only going to slow me down as I move into the great outdoors of new adventures

I wonder, if just as I smiled and knelt down to free her, perhaps our guardian angels are looking at us, shaking their heads at our stubborn refusal to leave the past comforts as we move into new heights.  Just as Emma submitted to my tender machinations to free her of her comforts, we must submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading, and again ‘lay aside every weight that so easily besets us.’

Until next time,

Polly