I've lost my anniversary gift 5, 327 times in almost two weeks.
Good Thursday to you friends.
Yes, I will admit it's true.
I've lost the most adorable little puppy you've ever laid your eyes on just about that many times in a little over a week and a half.
When I say, "little" puppy, I mean it.
And getting back into the "baby stage" of anything has made me young again, tired again and uber vigilant.
What used to be me just enjoying the breeze while diffusing my hair has now turned into:
"Where's Maisey?! Oh! She's over there."
"Is she sniffing?!!"
"Wait! Where did she go?!"
"When was the last time she went potty?""
"What is she chewing on?!"
Until I eventually loose her once again under the dresser which has a clearance of 3 inches.
I NOW know to look for her there instead of breaking into a cold sweat, but at first I was pretty shocked and simultaneously wondering if she could hunt for a lost earring while she was under there.
This puppy is LIT-TLE.
She's handbag size with a personality the size of the Empire State Building.
Trying to be the good parent that I claim to be I decided to barricade the kitchen area and make it as "Maisey proof" as I could before leaving for a funeral yesterday morning.
I was SURE she would potty on the floor, but thought that was alright since she wouldn't be sitting squashed in a crate with a mess like that.
I realize that years of parenting actual humans have made me a crazy dog mom picking the lesser of two evils when it comes to dog messes.
Not a chance would I have said to my husband before leaving for a trip with a toddler, "Well, let's just let them soil the van instead of our couch."
I now realize that my rationale has flown the proverbial coop.
Nevertheless we left for the funeral and in the back of my mind I was just wondering what on earth I would come home to when all was said and done.
We pulled in the drive, I hopped out calling for Maisey and she was NOWHERE to be found.
To make matters worse, our back door had been flung open by some strong wind.
(This HAS happened often before owning a new puppy, so why I did not take extra measures to make sure a puppy could not escape through said door is beyond my animal parenting brain.)
So here I am standing before a WIDE OPEN DOOR like a movie trailer to "Call of the Wild The Sequel" calling to my little puppy and she was gone.
Now coming from this funeral where I really tired to comfort a dear family, I didn't even have comfort left to comfort myself in this crazy situation, but I knew that if I was do go on a dog hunt, I would need to get these heels off and change into better shoes.
Over to the stairs I flew moving a barrage of furniture and pillows to get TO the stairs to dash up to get shoes from my room.
I stood by the window and literally poured out my heart to the Lord.
It wasn't fancy or even normal sounding.
It was just me telling the Lord that HE knows where this crazy little lovely dog is and that if he would be so kind, I needed him to help me find her.
It was in the middle of my room, near my closet and it was fifteen seconds tops.
I ran to the backyard to watch all six of us split into teams running hither thither and yon to find this dog.
Ever since Maisey was handed to me I've had this nagging fear that I would do something wrong and kill this little creature.
I'm not a plant Mom, and I don't even make great breakfasts for my own young, so I just thought this little creature's life was in unfit hands.
Well you can imagine how hog wild my condemning imagination was running at this time.
Trust me when I tell you it was setting Olympic records.
One kid ran down the street next to us and I paced the backyard while my husband called for someone to search the house, especially upstairs where Maisey had just learned to hop to.
I fumbled around in the back briar patch mumbling that I had just moved heaven and earth to get through the fortress blocking the stairs, there's NO WAY she had gotten up there.
I could feel the cold sweat creeping up in what seemed like an hour of searching bushes and wood piles.
Only I could lose a puppy in less than one week.
How would she eat?
What if she went into the road?!
And then I decided to just pray again to remind the Lord that He was able.
I think it was more for me to remember that He was indeed able and less of Him needing my reminder.
And just like that my youngest had her in her arms and the cry, "I found her!" rallied us all to the back porch.
Few times I have felt this same way when I have turned around in a store to be missing a little hand and little body, only to find them once again.
This felt the same exact way.
Don't tell my kids I said that, but it did.
She was in my arms, no worse for wear and I was once again glad I had invested in water resistant mascara.
That has been something I have never regretted.
When the story behind finding this hidden pup finally came out, she had indeed squirmed UNDER a tiny slit in a bench we had in front of the stairs and had made herself comfy in my closet.
The VERY closet I stood in front of asking the Lord to help me find her.
While we ran seemingly ten different directions, she had been two feet away from me calling out to the Lord for help.
Immediately Isaiah 64:24 came to mind, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”
Before I slipped out of my prayer and into running shoes the Lord had already found my lost anniversary present.
There among my shoes.
He knew just where she was and just when it would dawn on one of us to look there.
He knew what a happy reunion it would be, how it would calm all our hearts, even those who pretend to not care for this new puppy, and how we would sigh over dinner just recalling it again and again to the older ones away at work when this all went down.
And though all these things bring me comfort the one thing that bring a song to my heart is that he heard me.
And that understanding leads me to a few lines in a favorite poem of mine, so dear to my heart entitled, "Call Back."
"But if you'll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you'll say He saw you through the night's sin-darkened sky...
If you have gone a little way ahead, oh friend, call back.
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track."
Now I'm no spiritual giant.
I too need reminded that the Lord sees me.
Like Hagar in Genesis 16:13, I find myself calling the God of all Creation just what she did, “And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me:.."
Hagar didn't know what to call this amazing God, so she named him the God who sees her.
"El Roi."
the God who saw her struggle, who saw her frame, her plight, her discomfort and her neediness.
Right there in my bedroom with a hidden puppy in my closet, the Lord heard me and saw me.
ME.
He turned his ear, his gaze to me and listened to MY need.
He became once again MY El Roi.
Big or small, He hears and in this case he had already answered my simple, feeble cry for help.
Again with only briars and grass in view, he viewed a heart tender to whatever he would lead me to do and however he would answer be it difficult or easy.
And so I sit and write with this same little pup at my side to call to you as the poem suggests, and remind someone else today that he sees you too.
Because maybe like me, it will cheer your heart as well.
He sees what you are making for dinner and how you are doing your dead-level best to make do with what you have when in reality you just want to oder Chinese take-out.
He saw you let that woman go ahead of you in line at Aldi because she only had a bunch of fruit and you had, well, the cart to feed the thousands.
He saw you bite your lip when someone pushed your buttons after dinner and smile when you could've been snarky.
He saw you lean hard on a promise he gave you when you could have let fear run you into the ground.
He saw you pray instead of texting or posting, or getting someone else to hear you out.
He views you enjoying that walk while you listened to your bible reading.
He saw you make lunch for your husband when you hadn't even had time to sit and just enjoy your coffee yet.
He sees the little and the big and the seemingly insignificant.
And he might just have your anniversary present resting in your pile of shoes awaiting your discovery.
I am humbled that the Lord loves this silly housewife enough to stop and listen to her when her prayer is nothing more than a sigh, and I am here to tell you that he hears yours too.
They are just as important as mine or anyone else's.
I may not be a model dog mom but I have an El Roi who sees me and knows I will never be a model anything without him.
(Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Maisey. Please come help me find her in about an hour....)
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