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Dog With A Smolder

Smokey isn’t even my dog, and I wasn’t even sure that he liked me until this happened.

Ah Smokey

Well named.

A pure bred, full grown Siberian Husky with built in eyeliner, and a face that has a permanent ‘smolder’.

The dog looks like Nyle Dimarco… and it’s totally weird.

Anyway …

About a week ago, my neighbor asked if I would be up to the task of babysitting Smokey while he was away.

He works 5 days a week out of state, and leaving the fancy canine to fend for himself was of course out of the question.

I’ve known Smokey since he was a pup, seeing him walking with his human at least once a week for a couple of years, so I jumped at the chance to get to know the dog… and on top of that, I wanted a playmate for my own dear pup Emmett, who was needing some socialization.

So I said yes.

And the first few days were… well not ready for the smolder 😂

Smokey was pretty devastated at being separated from his human, and he was totally not excited about having a 4 month old Bernedoodle puppy, trying destroy his perfect face with slobber and zero boundaries when it came to play time.

The poor dog spent most of his sled dog energy, trying to pull himself away from Emmett… and if that didn’t work, he resorted to giving into Emmett’s idea of fun, which often resulted in damaged pride for my loving Bernadoodle, who though will one day be much bigger than Smokey, is still just a puppy who doesn’t understand the impatience of older dogs.

In short

He got his tail handed to him.

My female cat silently plotted the demise of Smokey’s Ego the minute he set foot in HER house.

She spat and hissed every time Smokey so much as smoldered her way.

She was not impressed.

Anyway the poor dog was miserable for about 3 days, and only ever so often showed normal dog signs of happiness.

He kept to himself mostly, and was totally not a snuggler much to my disappointment (and Emmett’s too) , and often would just stare stoically of into the distance, or directly into my eyes with his icy blue ones.

Which was a little scary… ok a lot scary.

He isn’t exactly the “Lassie” type.

I don’t know long I cried that night but it was probably hours before I gathered something called a “grip”.

Hopelessness attacks slow and quiet… a ninja of despair.

But when it hits, it hurts hard.

Alone on the couch at something o’clock at night.

I cried really hard.

And felt extremely sad.

And then all of the sudden, wakened from his sleep by my tears watering the hardwood floor, Smokey crawled up on the couch beside me, sat down, and gave me the most empathetic and understanding look a dog has ever given me and let me lay on his shoulders, and cry some more… this time with relief, and some hope.

Maybe you don’t believe in the intuition of dogs.

But I do.

God shows up in the most surprising and beautiful ways… through fur and barks, and wagging tales… smolders?

I think Smokey and I are bonding, and this week has been way easier… even the cat seems a bit more obliging to our handsome roommate.

(I lied… she still hates him)

Oh… and all of this happened during my sweet Emmett’s bed time.

He was snoring away and running in his sleep as is a ritual of his.

But he is always at my feet… his faithfulness is sun in my soul.

His eyes always completely void of judgement.

Emmett has brought a sense of unconditional love, that wrecks me every time I look at him.

Point of story

Dogs are great

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That time I humiliated myself in front of a lot of people in a foreign country.

It was in Switzerland, and I was on a missions trip with a team from my church.

I was one of the worship leaders on the team, and it was my first time overseas.

I remember feeling so nervous and excited being in a new country and I wanted make the best impression and was praying I would not do or say anything weird.

I should have prayed harder.

I was asked to lead a worship set in an old theatre where a large meeting was being held.

I had lead worship before, but I was still getting over a pretty severe and drawn out diagnosis of stage fright, and found it really hard to speak before I started a song.

It was a bad habit

I wouldn’t pray or invite people to enter in, I would just start the song without saying a word… which is ok sometimes, but not if you stare at everyone awkwardly first, and then just randomly start playing and have people think to themselves “Wait are we starting? Ok I guess we’re starting.”

My Pastor (who was also the drummer for the worship team as well) felt it was a good time to remind me to step out and really try to say a few words be fore we got started with worship and maybe pray or something.

So before the service, I really started thinking and praying about what I was gonna say.

“It’s gotta be something deep” I thought.

And then I got it!

That’s it!

I decided to share how the love of God never ends… how there was no limit… no floor, no ceiling. It was boundless!

It was awesome! “Dang this is so good!” I thought.

So then the moment came…. the lights went down, and the crowd came to a hush.

A translator was standing by, ready to interpret my profound call to meditate on the love of Jesus, before we sang his praises.

It was so quiet

Everyone was waiting for me to speak, as I started playing the keys to add a little music to the moment.

I got close to the mic… ready to tell Switzerland about the endless love of God…

And said these very words…

“You know what guys? God has no bottom”

…

After that I kinda blacked out and can’t remember anything.

Apparently the entire band lost it.

The trip was named the Bottomless God Tour and the story was told countless times.

Obviously it’s not biblically sound.

God does have a bottom.

He sits on a throne.

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Thoughts of a thirty year old fairytale enthusiast, with some small insights on the human soul.

“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

Fairy tales have been a major part of my life.

A defining part really… and much of the literary solidification of my faith (aside from The Word of God of course!)

So when I was about to walk out of a bookstore with a stack of Hans Christian Anderson in my arms some years ago, and a stranger rather rudely questioned my level of intellect and maturity because of my reading choice as a grown woman, I’ve become even more passionate about the genre than I ever was before (and that’s a lot of you know me well)

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

Albert Einstein

I enjoy books for spiritual growth, books of information, biography’s, autobiography’s, history, art, language and the classics. And of course The living breathing Word of God is the most important literature in my home.

But I have yet to find a genre that brings me more revelation and depth, than that of a story where every sense of my reality is challenged.

Because it awakens that childlike part of my heart that believes so easily. Where anything is possible.

Where somehow the reading of dragons, heroes and magic stories, helps me believe even more in the actual history and present reality, of demons, Heaven, and the mysteries of God.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

G.K. Chesterton

As a kid I always knew deep down that Santa wasn’t real, but I still played pretend well into my teens with the concept of him, because the beauty and magic of his fiction, for some reason, ignited my passion for the real truth and divinity of the Birth of Jesus Christ.

My play world was beautifully intertwined in the real one.

As for fairy tales, he understood that they were reflections of the people who had spun them, and were flecked with little truths – intrusions of reality into fantasy, like toast crumbs on a wizard’s beard.

Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

Maybe it’s just how I’m wired.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.

And I don’t expect anyone to read this and then promptly go grab a copy of Redwall by Brian Jacques (although you should)

But I truly believe that we are Mind, Spirit, Soul, and Body… and Jesus came to save our SOUL.

I’m the church we seem so set on tending to our mind, spirit, and body… but often we leave our soul out of it, for fear we will feed into sinful tendencies.

I believe Jesus wants to tend to our soul the most… I mean He saved it and sanctified it.

For our soul to be lifeless, without hope or imagination, without childlike wonder at the beauty of the Gospel, and the many creative ways and perspective we can see it explained, I believe is such a sad loss for Christ.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42:11 

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Matthew 16:26 

The difference between the gospel and fairy stories is quite small.

One is fact, and one is fiction…

Fairy stories help grasp the concept of heroes and good verses evil… The gospel REALLY HAPPENED with all of those things and the greatest, dragon fighter, princess saver of all!

Jesus!

Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been “a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.

Jack Zipes

I encourage you to expound your intellect, by entering a world of fiction and fun… maybe even find scripture to go along with the revelation you gain from a child’s tale.

Sometimes to grow up, is to grow backwards.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

C.S. Lewis

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Jesus spoke to me through a Disney film again.

It was this scene that almost had me drowning in my own snot and tears.

Other than being one of the darkest Disney films ever made, aside from the Black Cauldron, (which I still get nightmares from), and also besides the very, and I mean very, mature themes scattered throughout the picture, this work of art never ceases to rivet me every time I watch it.

Oh and this movie has the best musical score in all animated movie history.

Fight me.

So obviously I relate a lot to Quasimodo the deformed bell ringer of Notre Dame… and honestly I think we all have been in his situation at one point, in one way or another.

You don’t have to have to have a strange face and a hump on your back to be able to get on this dudes level.

I mean c’mon… he’s not the only one who has felt trapped, judged, abandoned, insecure and condemned by a religious spirit right?

Didn’t think so.

(Spoilers) The film is set in France, during a time when gypsy’s were a problem.

They were known for not meeting the standard of what was socially acceptable at the time, and were often shunned by the public.

In the movie Notre Dame acted as a safe haven for those who needed protection. It was illegal even for officers to arrest someone in the house of God.

So no matter what crime you’ve committed or been accused of, if you run into the church and declare sanctuary, your basically safe.

The female lead in the film, a gypsy named Esmeralda, voiced by Demi Moore, is accused by the bad guy (whose like a bishop or something) of … well being a gypsy and sentenced to death by burning (told you, this movie so intense).

Anyway Quasimodo saves her just in time, carries her unconscious body to the top of the church, lifts her over his head and screams ”sanctuary”… demanding her pardon.

And once again Jesus reveals His nature in a (slightly disturbing, but yet amazing) Disney film.

I have been found guilty so many times.

Condemned, and found guilty of things way worse than Esmeralda ever did. (I would hope since she’s a children’s cartoon character)

I’ve made some pretty insane mistakes recently.

Mistakes I never thought I would ever make… choices I considered below me until pain and pride and straight rebellion clouded my surrender.

This year was full of some very hard lessons learned and it’s taken a long time to feel stable.

Sin makes you feel like crap.

Because of shame, I avoided grace and forgiveness because I was convinced I didn’t deserve it.

I felt I deserved to burn for my actions and thoughts.

And I was right.

I did deserve it.

And that’s when Jesus scooped me up, cut my bonds, drug me up a church, held me over His head and cried out “Sanctuary”.

Jesus, declares Sanctuary for us. Forgiveness, grace, protection, safety.

And that fact alone destroys any desire in me of doing whatever I want, or giving into pain and fear and choosing the easy way out.

It wasn’t until I was faced with the pain of sin, that I realized how I want nothing to do with it… how I never want to spit on the sacrifice of Christ, because of how incomparable His love has been in my life.

How grateful I am for love and grace I don’t deserve.

Anyway…. This movie is seriously incredible and also very scary and has weird sketchy parts ranging from sexual assault to torture, to weird religious rhetoric, so maybe don’t let small children watch it?

And I always skip the “Hell Fire” song…

yep.

It’s an actual song.

But again… the music. Is. So.good.

And again… Jesus is our “Sanctuary”!

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Sometimes I forget I have scars.

Honestly, I forget I even have them…

Its only until a child harmlessly mentions them, or a stranger stares a little too long, that I am reminded my face is rather, well, striking.

Of course it wasn’t always like that.

Standing out all through my teenage years had its challenges, but thats another story, and a longer read.

But for the latter part of my adult life, going out, hanging with friends, walking my dog, all is done with very little self-conscious when it comes to the visible mark on my body.

Like I don’t sit at home all day wondering what I would look like or be without my scars… and if there is ever a time when I do imagine my skin without keloids, it doesn’t seem to have any affect on how I see myself.

I’m me with them, and I’d still be me without them.

Although most of my close friends would echo that they too forget my unique appearance, there always the select and well meaning few that ask this question.

Doesn’t God want you to be whole?

Why are you not healed?

To be fair. This is a valid question that has been asked of me countless times, in many different ways.

When something that would seem to be a contradiction in the design of God as well as the will of God, it brings forth the human wonder, and sometimes an age old human doubt.

Why does God allow stuff to happen that just isn’t that pretty?

I’ll never forget the day many years ago, when walking through my journey with Jesus, that I shook my fist at Him and shouted like a child…

Why. Won’t. You. Heal. Me?

… If you’ve ever been in a place where you honestly don’t understand why God DOESN’T do something that you feel would make sense for Him to do because of His nature, you can imagine my hurt and confusion.

“I’ve done everything, and I have so much faith that you can do anything. Why can’t you do this?”

And somewhere in the inner city of Nashville, I heard His actual voice in my tiny apartment, in the most loving and understanding tone I’ve ever heard.

Of course I can heal you Sarah, but are you willing to see what I’ll do with your life if I don’t”

… As most of you know the rest is history.

I said yes, and over the years have been amazed at the people I’ve had the privilege of speaking to, and the hearts I’ve seen healed and come to Christ, simply because I was willing to believe that God’s goodness had nothing to do with whether or not He normalized something in my life.

Wholeness, is what God says it is. Not what we say it is.

Healing, is the nature of God, not the demanding of man.

To trust God enough to let Him be Himself, and to have His way no matter what the cost… is to be healed,

because the lack of trust, is our greatest wound.

So yea, I forget that I have scars.

I forget that there was great pain in my life, and I forget that I might not be what some would consider physically whole…

But I forget because all I can remember, was the day Jesus healed my insides, and let my outsides be the testimony of what it means to trust.

I forget my scars, because all I can remember are the scars of Christ and how beautiful they are.

Wherever you need healing, whether physical or emotional, whether outside or inside…

His will for your life is wholeness, goodness and love.

His will for your life, is Him.