A dog's life

This morning, the randomness of life came back to, uh, lick my hand.

When my wife, Mary, was ready to go to work, a beautiful, extremely friendly Pit Bull was there to greet her. She wanted nothing more than to get in Mary’s truck and cruise. My dogs went berserk, but I kept them in the house as I went out to help get the newcomer settled so Mary could leave.

Then, I was stuck. Eventually I was able to get back into the house. I went for a bath, got myself ready, came out thinking the newcomer would be gone, and she was sitting in one of the rocking chairs in the front of the parsonage.

Somewhere out there, someone out there is missing a fine, fine dog.

As I write this, she is out there, waiting, somehow waiting, for someone to come. No collar. No idea about name. No idea what to do next. There she is.

I’m not sure that isn’t a pretty good picture of our lives. Oh, we’re fairly confident of our names, I imagine. But we really, really don’t know what is coming next. One day we’re in our yard or our house or whatever the case might be and the next we’re, what, lost?

That’s, again, pretty much the way I run this thing we call life. I have some vague outline of what I want to do, but really, I don’t have a clue about what’s next. Retirement? How? Work till I drop? That’s not far away, I figure.

So, one step after another, trusting all along that God has my back and that there is a home to get back to, I walk, wondering half the time where my master is and what steps must I do to get to him.

I imagine this beautiful, friendly, lost dog feels the same way. What can she do without her master?