Indy and the Walk of Faith

 What are you afraid of? 

I don't mean things like the dark or heights, or scary movies.  I mean really, really afraid.  What is that thing in your life that scares the absolute wits out of you?

For some people it's death.  For others, it's loneliness.  But for pretty much everyone, when we really sit and consider this, it's one thing - the unknown.  I'm not sure if it's because we're Americans or because we're humans, but when it comes right down to it, we're all afraid of being completely out of control.

Being out of control, when followed to its logical end, means that someone or something else is in control.  Maybe this makes us afraid because when we were small and someone else was in control, we got hurt.  Or we were lonely, or our needs weren't met.  Maybe we got used to things being a certain way - things as simple as seeing the same faces every day, smelling the same smells, hearing the same noises.  When the same thing is continuous, it becomes reassuring.  It becomes something we can depend on, something we can expect to stay the same.  It becomes the known.

Right now I'm afraid for my dog.  Indy is 11 years old, and is blind in one eye.  He is aging, just like me -- his hearing is going, and he's having trouble getting up and down steps.  He still is the cute little Lhasa Apso that was so adorable as a puppy.  His care inevitably falls to me, so I make sure hes fed, and I wipe the mucous out of his morning eyes, and I clean his ears and remember his flea/tick/heartworm stuff and take him to the groomer and the vet.  We are all he has known since he left his mother at 8 weeks old. 

Now don't get me wrong here -- I sound like a dog lover, don't I?  He's a dog, not a person, and not my child. This dog annoys me as much as he comforts me.  I bristle under the way he stalks me when he's hungry.  I think, why can't someone else feed him?  Why does he always follow me around?

It's because I am the one constant in his life.  I am always there.  In the basic patterns of his life, I am the thing that doesn't change for him.  He knows my voice, the feel and sound of my steps, my smell.  I am his "known."

But right now my life is in freefall.  Mark had to leave his ministry here, and we haven't been called yet to a new one.  We have a temporary plan that involves me and Makaela staying here in the town where we've been for the past 5 years, and Mark going 12 hours north to take care of his aging mom.  The twins will live about 3 hours from him, also 12 hours north of me.  Two more girls will be heading south of me here to college, one about an hour and a half south, and the other three hours south.  There is not a place for a dog in our lives anymore, and we must find a new home for Indy.

It feels like my family is a beautiful stained glass window, and someone has thrown a baseball into it at high speed.  It is fracturing and scattering into pieces..  I don't even have a new home in sight yet, just a place to stay.  I am scared to death.

So I find myself with all this worry about the dog.  For some reason, it just feels a lot more mature and adult to be worried about where the dog goes rather than to accept that my kids are growing up and moving on, and that God has us in His waiting room yet again.  I've been in this place before, and God has always ended the waiting with a magnificent provision that went beyond my imaginings.  I know better than to be afraid.  I know God is faithful.

I cope with this uncertainty in a way that fools everyone into thinking that I am confident.  I worry about the dog.

So today I am going to feed him, pet his head, let him follow me to the basement where it's cool and he can sleep comfortably out of the summer heat.  I will tell him to stop licking his paws and ask him if he needs to go outside.  I will be the constant in his life just like Jesus is in mine.  And I will be reminded that there is a safe, secure place -- a good home for Indy.  It will be all right.  The One who made the universe, dogs included, is in control.  There will be a place for him, like there will be a place for me. 

That is how I face this vast unknown.  This is the walk of faith, and it is scary.  It requires depending on what I know, and I know this:

Lamentations 3:22-23 (The Message)

^22-24God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
   his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
   How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
   He's all I've got left. 

And if you know of anyone who needs a faithful companion to love and be loved by,  I have just the little fuzzy guy. . .