My son Andrew is highly allergic to dogs. His allergies aren’t just the nose sniffling, eyes itching kind but the “I can’t breathe; an elephant is sitting on my chest!”
We tried allergy shots for a year, but even after all of the treatment he couldn’t tolerate any dog even the hypoallergenic ones.
My kids were sad. They always wanted a dog. I was a little relieved. I saw this as God’s way of helping me stay sane and my house cleaner and our yard free from holes. I knew how much work dogs can be; cats they are not!
But five months ago our lives changed when my daughter brought home a mutt-puppy we named Jack.
I like to call him my patchwork puppy.
He’s not very pretty. (Smile). His legs are blonde, body tan and black, chest white, beard and mustache black matching his crazy eyebrows, and the tip top of his head is turning red. Sometimes the hair on top of his head forms into a perfect strawberry-blonde mohawk.
But we love him. O how we love him. Even though at times he is hard work.
He’s now potty-trained. (Hallelujah!) He loves to eat shoes, shoe strings, dryer sheets, kleenex, mushrooms, and anything else he can get into his mouth that we don’t want him to eat. He’s fast on the draw and can grab something out of the trash before you can say, “Stop!”. His way of telling you he loves you is gnawing on your hand, and he has made life very different and challenging for Callie the cat.
But we love him.
He whines and barks at 5:00AM.
But I love him.
I was pondering the miracle of this puppy the other day as I stared at him sleeping in the sun. As I was thinking of the mix he is made of–his parents were mutts too– this thought wafted through my mind…God knew the exact recipe to make a puppy our family could keep. He knew the perfect combination of dogs that would be hypoallergenic for Drew. Nothing is impossible with God.
What kind of God would love his children so much that He would bless them with something that to many (and I confess to me) would not be deemed as necessary? We didn’t need a dog.
But maybe we did.
If you hold a disappointment in your heart that seems will never be changed, Jack is proof that nothing is impossible with our creative God.
Much grace,
andy
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).
