My dog Molly

I love my dog but sometimes she makes me so angry that I barely restrain myself from SNAPPING. I feel like Bruce Banner “Don’t make me angry Molly, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”. Only difference is I don’t get all green and buff.

A couple of years ago she ate our Robbie Burns haggis right out of the grocery tote. THAT’S MY HAGGIS! Today she ate some ham that was on the counter. =: \ ARGHHHH!!!!

Okay… okay… deep breath in… exhale… ok… I’m calm now

All in all she is a good dog. She was abandoned and taken into the pound when some friends of ours adopted her. They gave her to us when they couldn’t look after her anymore. She sleeps beside me every night. If I sleep on the other side of the bed she moves over to my side, except when my wife was pregnant then she slept on her side and was very protective of her and our newborn baby girl. She didn’t get jealous when we no longer gave her attention and spent all our time with the baby. She never complains when we don’t take her for a walk and she appreciates every moment when we do. She paces back and forth under our dinner table and never lets a crumb that falls to the floor go to waste. Unlike my children who most days seem to not even care if they eat and what is served often receives a turned up nose instead of thank you. Usually the “eat your dinner or there’s no dessert” threat is invoked.

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." - Matthew 15:21-26

This was my reading a few days ago and I’ve been thinking about it all week. This woman amazes me. She obviously loved her daughter. She was so persistent when Jesus was ignoring her! And when He calls her a dog she parries His proverb with her own. She risked and endured humiliation, insult and rejection for her little girl. Why is it that when we have something for free we tend to take it for granted? Guaranteed there is someone who would die for what we have. I wonder what God feels when His children ignore the gifts He gives them. When as Keith Green put it “you prefer the light of your TV”

I don’t know about you, but I identify with the Syrophoenician woman. Whenever I read this I’m hoping that she gets her request granted.

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. - Mark 7:24-30