Some things I've learned from my dog

As most people know, I have two dogs. Buster Rhymes Nagel, the basset hound, and Frank Zappa Nagel, the dachshund. They are both pretty funny dogs, both were rescues and have "issues" but we love them dearly. Buster is my favorite and yes, I am allowed to have a favorite dog. I can't have a favorite kid, but I can with dogs. Buster use to go to work with me everyday and he even had his own jobs at the animal center. Since we have moved to Georgia, he is retired and has taken on a life of leisure. I was watching him the other day and realized that I have learned a great deal from that silly boy.



Some things I have learned from my dog:



A good stretch and big yawn, sometimes makes you want to go right back to bed.



Worry is a useless emotion; it stresses you out and makes you want to eat through the front door, but in the end, it just gets you splinters in your tongue. It's much more productive to take a nap and let God worry for you.



Even people who love you are mean to you sometimes. It's best to leave them alone, go back to your doghouse and in a few minutes come back with forgiveness in your heart and your tail wagging. By then, you've forgotten what happened anyway.



Being quick to forgive and quick to give love can heal just about any wound in anyone that is around you.



There's never a bad time to take a nap.



Squirrels are evil.



Trust and complete obedience in the One who holds your future (and the key to the dog food) is the only way to go.



Bigger ears don't necessarily mean you can hear better, it just means you are more likely to trip over them when you get really excited chasing a squirrel.

Kudzu or Oak Tree

I blame facebook for the reason that I have not posted in so long. I started using it about the time of my last post and well, the rest is history. I like it, most of the time, but it does suck up alot of time. It has been fun reconnecting with old friends and finding out what people are up to. Most of the time, connecting with old friends it wonderful, but occasionally, it brings up emotions that I thought I was past. If you ever went to your high school reunion, you can probably relate. It doesn't matter how much time has past, we somehow still gravitated to those old groups, those old feelings and the old junk that made high school such an emotionally draining time. Some people I would like to simply say I am sorry to, for not being the friend I should have been to them. For others I want to thank them for being a positive influence in my life long after they were actually present in my day to day. And yet others simply bring up memories that I had always thought were better left unexplored.

God has a strange way of nudging us to deal with the things that may be holding us back or hurting us in some way. He is a gentle and quiet leader who simply points to the memory and says, "It's time to deal with this one, my dear." He patiently waits until we are ready to respond.

A pastor at my church in San Diego once gave a sermon on memories and why we have them. In a nutshell, he said that God wants us to not only remember where we came from and how He has always faithfully brought us through every situation, but he also wants us to remember just how weak we really are without Him.

I was watching a music video (something I never do, actually) and there were two kids planting a seed. God decided to teach me a lesson right then and there. It is when we are the smallest we can possibly be, covered with six inches of mud that we are desperate enough to search with abandon for His light. We start reaching toward the sky in faith, since we cannot yet even see that light. Then one day, after lots of work, we come into His marvelous light, and we look down and notice that the work and hardship has allowed us to grow out of that small seed we once were and into the thriving plant He always wanted us to be. Journeys through painful situations are not meant to be easy, if they were, we would just be Kudzu instead of an Oak tree.