When I decided to adopt Luna, a five year old chocolate lab 2 days ago, I knew I had to jump in with BOTH feet.
You can’t halfway care for a dog and love it halfway or something bad can take over. Resentment.
The truth is that dogs smell really gross to me. Their fur gets on to everything and they’ve seem ridiculously emotionally needy to me. The constant caring for them can feel like such a never-ending chore. But the reality is also that they need people. These pack animals get neurotic and socially dysfunctional without a predictable caregiver who serves as pack leader. (Yes, I’ve been learning for the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan.)
They easily sense apprehension. They need a non frustrated, calm leader–and I admit when she shoves me out of the way to barge out into the rain after school kids I get tense!
Having grace for her problems and retraining her to be a better fit in our family is the new mission of The DeLay Pack.
I’ll keep you posted. Soon.
In the meantime, what good advice do you have for me?
I asked her to guest post here, and she also sent me a couple of books to give away! I’m going to be honest and tell you, I’m reading one of them, and I’ll give it away, when I’m ready. I really enjoy Sarah’s writing.
She is also the author of Dear Church: Letters From a Disillusioned Generation, a high school teacher, frequent speaker, wife to Mr. C, mom to Justus, the wonder baby, and keeper of a frenetic (aren’t they all) Jack Russell terrier, Wrigley. This is among many other accomplishments, but I only have so much space, and time, before you click away, with that short attention span of yours. Read here, to learn more, at her site.
If you would like to try for a copy of Picking Dandelions, here’s what to do.
1) Click the link to her website (above).
2) Learn 3 new things about Sarah.
3) Post them in the leave a comment section.
Rules/Tips: You can’t repeat anyone else’s item. (So, hurry, because the first people will get the good ones.) The person with the best eye for detail may be selected, but whimsy will give you bonus points. Go for it!
Sarah Cunningham
Guest Post from SARAH:
On Change
Dear readers of the lovely Lisa Colon Delay.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
Just because I wrote a book on change doesn’t mean I’m good at changing.
You might even say I’m bad at it.
Resistance to change is not necessarily a good quality when it comes to faith.
But sometimes I’m lazy.
Not changing just seems easier.
Its easier to view conversion as an event frozen in time, tucked away with Shrinky Dinks, glow worms, and other relics from the 1980s (or whatever decade you came to the faith).
Its more convenient to leave conversion there, during that one shining moment when we turned to God, than to continue to lug the light around where it might inadvertently illuminate things that still need changing.
This is what we tell ourselves anyways.
That its easier to let ourselves off the hook when our flaws rear their heads.
Its easier to protect our pride.
To keep being a little bit controlling.
To insist losing our temper is just the “way we are”.
Changing those sorts of things takes too much energy.
It costs too much.
Not changing is just cheaper.
Or is it?
It sorta depends on how you calculate the cost.
After all, our lack of change is probably costing someone.
Like the people who have to smack into the wall of our pride on a daily basis.
Like the family or friends or co-workers we manipulate.
Like the wounded left in the wake of our temper tantrums.
There is also, of course, the cost to ourselves.
The damage to the life God intended for us.
A life that is a little more scarred, a little more strained, a little more convoluted.
A cheapened version of the life-to-the-full Jesus said he came to bring.
So we sidestep the cost of personal reflection and hard work to confront our flaws.
But do all those times when we cheap-skate change end up being more expensive in the end?
What do you think? Can Christians afford the luxury of unchanged living?
