Puppy Power

By Kim Stokely –

I know it sounds odd to say, but a puppy brought me closer to God.

It started innocently one Sunday after church when my family and I stopped at a pet store. The volunteers from the shelter saw me coming from a mile away and set their sights. I know they did. As soon as I saw their little bundles of white fluff, they had me.

To be honest, we’d come to the open house of the Little White Dog Rescue with the intention of adopting a dog. I just hadn’t intended on coming home with two. But my family fell in love with a little Maltese/Poodle mix while my heart melted when I held the Bichon/Shih Tzu puppy. The ladies from the rescue told me they’d make us a deal on adoption fees if we took them both.

My brain argued with my emotions. Don’t do it! Two puppies at once? Are you nuts? If you’re not now, you will be when you try to train them both!

But thankfully, my heart won out. We brought the two little fur balls home with us and began the process of housebreaking.

A week of them on separate schedules and different bad habits was enough to make me tear out my hair. Not that anyone one noticed. My hair blended in nicely with the tufts of fur, squeaky toys and rope bones the tiny beasts left all over the house. My attitude had sunk from joy to frustration faster than a puppy can lift his leg to mark a piano.

One of the hardest things to get used to was waking up by 5:30 to take Ollie, the hair ball I’d fallen in love with, outside for his morning constitutional. Because his sibling still lay sleeping soundly in her crate, I hesitated to bring Ollie back to the bedroom after our walks. That meant I had to stay awake with him in the kitchen because, as everyone knows, an unsupervised puppy causes more havoc than a class one tornado.

At first, this new routine was another source of aggravation. The siren call of flannel sheets can be overwhelming on cold, dark, winter mornings. I longed to crawl back into bed and hibernate until the sun rose. But I realized something around the second or third week of this new normal.
I’d been seeking the motivation to wake up earlier to spend more time with my Bible and in prayer, but invariably would pull the covers over my head when the alarm rang. It’s a lot easier to ignore an inanimate object than a whining puppy. Ollie’s schedule pushed me out of my laziness and into a time of quiet intimacy with God.

I’ve come to love the hour or so I spend with Ollie curled up at my feet while I sip my tea and read God’s word. He may be the cutest answer to prayer I’ve ever received.

It’s All about Perspective

By Dawn Wilson –

A splendid cruise just shouldn’t be interrupted by rain. A downpour during our recent journey from Australia to New Caledonia not only forced us all indoors, it created the inspiration for ongoing ridicule in my life.

One evening, as we pulled away from shore, a tropical shower hit. I stood on the veranda outside our room, watching a sheet of water move across the sky.

I turned to my husband and asked, “Hey Bob, do you think it’s raining on the other side of the ship?”

Now I thought that was logical because of the “sheet” of rain I observed, but my husband, inside the room, burst into hysterical laughter.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said (snicker, snicker). “Let’s call and ask Tom” (loud guffaw)!

Tom and his wife Jan had a room on the other side of the ship. As Bob phoned to relay the story to them, I could hear them laughing … hard!

That night, as we ate aboard ship, they bombarded me with questions. “Hey Dawnie, do you think there’s water on the other side of the ship? Do you think there are fish in the water on your side?” Etc., ad nauseam.

They could laugh all they wanted, but I knew what I saw! It was all about perspective.

It’s the same with worldviews.

Christians have a different worldview from the world without Christ. We see a different scenario. For instance, from our perspective, there is purpose in this world because God created it. We’re not here by chance. In our view, there is hope, because Jesus came to save and forgive us and He is coming again to take us to a prepared home. The alternative? As one atheist said, “When people die, they are dead. That’s it. Eternity would be boring.”

I once studied the lives of C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. These two men were polar opposites. Lewis, a Christian apologist, turned from atheism to become a powerhouse for Christ. Freud, who embraced scientific materialism, remained a steadfast atheist. Although both men shaped the thinking and morality of their (and future) generations, they simply viewed life from different perspectives.

Unfortunately, all perspectives do not lead to eternal life. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 16:25 ESV).

There are many religions, many philosophies and many points of view—but the Bible says there is only one way to heaven. Jesus said, “… no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me” (John 14:6 AMP). He is our life.

Our culture today tries to shake us from this truth. They scoff at our claim: there is only one way to God and salvation (Acts 4:11-12). They may laugh at us, and may someday even persecute us or worse. But once we know the Savior, we know what we’ve seen. It’s all about perspective!

Things Unseen

By Rhonda Rhea –

We’ve been talking about getting an invisible fence for the dog. Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just get an invisible dog? Immediate reduction in food costs. And the yard clean-up? No comparison. If your invisible dog decides to use your sofa as a giant face towel, you’re not any worse off. Not to mention, taking your invisible dog to the imaginary vet could save a boatload of bucks.

On the other hand, invisible dogs are not very effective when you try to blame them for your missing homework. If they bark at intruders, I doubt you’ll ever hear it. And how about having a little beast so excited to see you that it can’t stop wiggling? I think we’d miss seeing that.

Faith is not exactly something you can see either. But even still, it solidifies in our minds and hearts everything that is most real. “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. For our ancestors won God’s approval by it. By faith we understand that the universe was created by God’s command, so that what is seen has been made from things that are not visible” (Hebrews 11:1-3 HCSB).

Everything we can see with our eyes has been created by the God we’ve not seen. The evidence brings faith. And the faith is more evidence.

Do you know what happens as we allow the Lord to grow our faith and use it in serving Him? He gives us eyes to see people in a way we’ve never seen them before and to love them in a way we can’t in our own flesh. He gives us glimpses of what He sees.

Paul expressed great gratitude to God for the people in Thessalonica. Why? “because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing,” (2 Thessalonians 1:3 ESV).

Singer, songwriter and—my favorite role of his—son, Andy Rhea, wrote about putting feet to our faith in the song “Drop Your Nets.” In it, he writes,

Lay me down, I will stay right where you want me to
Pick me up, and I will go. Oh Lord, you know I’ll go
Break me to the ground so I’ll be face to face with all the ones that I’ve
Stepped on, passed by
Missed their mute cries
Come on people, we have eyes to dry

Sometimes our call to faith beckons us to hear some cries and dry some eyes. It calls us to drop what might be most comfortable and to sacrifice. The song continues:

This is the call for disciples’ nets to fall down
This is the broken up soil, it’s time to seed it
This is the call for disciples’ nets to fall down
This is a vein full of love, it’s time to bleed it

A “dogged” faith, if you will, is one that shows up in how we see people. And how we love them. A key line in Andy’s song is “Let’s lay down our nets and scream, ‘We were made to see things unseen.’” Invisible. Yet seen.

As far as the invisible dog goes, though, I’m still looking. But they’re just so hard to find.

Into the Furnace!

By Liz Cowen Furman –

Late last year we had a severe cold snap. Thirteen below for over a week. Very unlike our mountains, especially that early in our winter season. One particularly windy morning I had the fire burning briskly in the fireplace as I sat writing at the computer on one side of the hearth that opens to two rooms.

All at once, a startling urge to look at the fireplace washed over me. The flames were so huge, and in the next instant the terrifying realization hit me that those flames were not IN the fireplace.

I dashed to the other side of the rock wall to see our parrot’s cage engulfed in flames, with Meyer in it. When he saw me, he screamed. I in turn screamed for my son, Matthew, to come help as I grabbed the half-full glasses of coffee and juice sitting on the table. I threw the contents at Meyer’s cage door so I could open it and attempt a rescue. As the fire raged around my head, I entered the inferno and reached for my terrified bird. I felt like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

He tried flying to me, but his left wing feathers were burned off. He fell onto the red-hot metal cage bars then immediately let go. I caught him midair just as Matthew appeared and began throwing the jugs of Kangen water (twelve gallons in all) we miraculously had sitting in the dining room at the rapidly growing flames.

I raced our panicked bird to an upstairs bathroom, away from the flames and smoke. We wanted no fried bird for dinner! I then dashed back down to help Matthew.

So many miracles surround that terrifying event. First of all, I wasn’t supposed to be there. But for a phone call from a dear friend, I would have been gone. We surely would have lost not only the bird, but Grammie downstairs, Matthew upstairs sleeping, our pooches Timo and Price, and our home.

The insurance is replacing the flooring in our kitchen, which I have always hated, and not only that room, but much of the downstairs. Not to mention that a very nice crew of folks came and washed EVERYTHING in our house, including every knick-knack, every wall, and even washed our laundry. Our house had never been so clean.

The most miraculous fact is that I practically crawled into a blazing furnace and all that happened to me was that I burned off my eyebrows and arm hair, and I have very short eyelashes now. Meyer bird is recovering nicely, too. His feathers are all growing back in and he doesn’t have to fly in circles with just one wing intact.

The big take-home for me is that God is with us, in the good times and there leading, guiding and directing in the scary horrifying times too. I can rest more securely in that great verse from Psalm 46:1, knowing we had angels working overtime that day.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (NIV).

Being Committed

By Kim Stokely –

Ah, the New Year. A time to look over past achievements and set goals for the future. A good friend of mine once asked, “If I’ve accomplished all my New Year’s Resolutions by January 9th, did I set my goals too low?”

Maybe.

I hate making goals. They mock me. As soon as I make one, all of life seems to conjoin to keep me from accomplishing it. If I say I’m going to lose weight, then strangers start throwing chocolate my way. If I promise I’m going to write a certain amount of words each day, then my computer freezes or my zip drive gets lost. If I commit to a quiet time in Bible study and prayer, then every telemarketer from here to Mumbai calls for that exact hour.

Instead of “goals” I prefer lists. They’re a little less formal. More laid back. A list invites me to accomplish it, rather than demanding my participation. I can check things off at my leisure. There’s no deadline. No obligation.

This kind of attitude doesn’t work in my walk with God, however. Not if I want to grow in any measurable way. God doesn’t demand that I seek Him, but He certainly rewards those who are faithful. If I’m putting my relationship with God on some kind of checklist, then there’s a good chance I’m taking it too lightly. Treating it too casually. There’s a saying, the difference between being involved with someone and being committed to them is like a ham and eggs breakfast. The chicken is involved with the meal. The pig is committed.

This year I’m setting one goal. I’m going to strive to be more committed to my relationship to God. Intentional in the time I spend with Him. Not out of obligation, or because He’s on my list of “things to do,” but because I long to have the kind of faith that He desires for me.

The great thing about this resolution is I can’t set a deadline for when I have to have it accomplished. There is no actual “goal.” I will never be perfect or sinless. I can never know all there is to know about God. He will never run out of ways to surprise me. Although I can never fulfill this resolution, I can never fail at it either, because as long as I am seeking to know more about Him, I’ll be successful.

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