Lent, God and Dogs

Lent is one of my favorite church seasons, probably second to Advent. There's someting about the anticipation of what's coming that's even more exciting than the final event. When I was a kid, I thought Christmas and Easter were the two best parts of being a Christian. Presents, candy, new clothes, and the decorations for both seasons were so exciting. But now that I'm grown up, the waiting is the best, not the hardest, part.

One of the things that I like about Lent is that I tend to be more in tune with my soul and with God. I do things in Lent to remind me of my blessings, and to try to draw closer to Him and His people in the world. I've been participating in Bible Study all year, but this first week of Lent, we had a great discussion about how we find God in our lives, and what unconditional love is. It was a great discussion, so spirit-filled and moving that we ran out of time to go over the Gospel reading, stopping after another of Paul's letters to the Romans.

Our talk about unconditional love had two main parts: that as humans, we have a hard time really understanding it, and that there is one example most of us can use to get some idea of it. We have a hard time understanding unconditional love because we don't practice it well. Even my mom used to say that she always loved me, but she didn't always like me. But the times she didn't like me could sometimes feel like she didn't love me, even if she said she did. And as an adult, I have a hard time loving unconditionally. I love my husband, but if he were to betray me, which I know he would never ever do, would I still love him? And we talked about God's unconditional love. What is that like? Is it the same as my mom's, that He always loves us but sometimes doesn't love us? And what about sin and guilt? He forgives everything we are truly sorry for, but we can't always forgive ourselves. So when do we feel forgiven? How can we get to a place of feeling unconditional loved?

The other part of our conversation dealt with the one way we can really get unconditional love in our lives-- through our dogs. One of the women in our Bible study group recently took her dog, Daphne,  to visit at a friend's house, and Daphne was attacked by another dog. She had to get stiches on her neck, and she was hurt pretty badly. My friend felt terrible, full of guilt that she hadn't protected Daphne, that she had taken her to a place where she got hurt. But when Daphne got out of the vet's office, she was so happy to see Kimberly and acted as if nothing had happened. Daphne may not be happy if she ever runs into that other dog again, but she didn't hold any anger for my friend. That is unconditional love.

I had recently recieved a forwarded email story about God and dogs. And angel comes to God to tell HIm that Adam and Eve wanted a companion to keep them company. God makes a dog and sends it to them. But then the angel saw a change in the couple. They became haughty because the dog adored them so much. He went back to God and made a report about his concern, and so God sent Adam and Eve a cat to keep them on an even keel. The story ended with a line about the cooincidence that dog is God spelled backwards.

So it's Lent. And we're in a time of waiting, a rather sad time of waiting. We are waiting for Christ's crucufixtion which will wash away the world's sin. We are waiting for His rising from the dead on the third day. And this is the greatest form of unconditional love, to be afraid of death, but to go through it anyway to save others. Even to save people who will turn away, who will mock, who will waver back and forth about the reality of what He has done.

But we aren't the only ones waiting. I'd like to make an analogy here, another dog story, so bear with me. Our dogs, like most dogs, love it when we come home. There have been times when we've been gone for 12 hours and come home late at night, and when they get out of their kennels, they are so happy all they can do is bark and wag and lick us and jump up to get close to us. But, they have the same reaction if we're gone for five minutes. There have been times I've come home just as Paul is pulling out of the garage, and when I get upstairs, knowing the dogs have been kenneled all of two minutes, their reaction is the same as if I was gone all day.

We wait for God, but He is waiting for us. We go through our lives, knowing that someday we'll meet him. But we don't always focus on that meeting. When people talk about heaven, they talk about meeting deceased family and friends, or famous people, or seeing the wonders of Heaven. But what about meeting God face to face? And won't He be as happy to see us, in His unending love, as those silly little creatures who love us from their wet noses to their wagging tails? I'm not saying God will be jumping and planting wet kisses on our faces, but wouldn't you imagine He'll be happy to see you, a person He made, and loved, and saw live a life while He walked unseen beside you? And in our Lenten waiting, isn't that what we should be joyously waiting for, to meet Him in the end?

I pray that in this long season of prayer and contemplation, we remember what and whom we wait for, and who waits for us.