Reality is Messy

We adopted a puppy. If you have never adopted a puppy then that last sentence invoked thoughts of puppies as seen on Hallmark cards and dog food commercials. If you have adopted a puppy then you are now having flashes of overturned trash cans, chewed up everything, toilet paper dragged throughout the house and whining to go in and whining to go out and whining to go in. There is the idea of a puppy and then there is the reality of a puppy. If you haven't had a puppy, you love it, in your mind's eye, immediately because it is a puppy. If you have had a puppy you know you end up loving it despite it being a puppy.

Having a child and having a pet are not the same thing however, there are some similarities. The idea of a baby is all softness and beatific smiles. The reality of a baby is a lot of hard, thankless work. Puppies turn into sedate dogs in a year or so, or so I have heard. A baby is just the beginning of a long, twisting journey. A journey that just when you think you have gotten the hang of it makes a ninety degree turn requiring you to figure it out again. Diapers turn into training pants and training pants turn into big boy pants and big boy pants turn into $90 jeans. (Thankfully, at that point you can decline.)

Our journey as a parent is not so different from our spiritual journey. We figure one step out just in time to take another step, quite possibly in a different direction. Just as it wouldn't be wise to treat your teenager like a baby. No sippy cups in middle school. It isn't reasonable to expect your life in Christ to contiue in the same rut. Jesus often tipped the tables in the temple, metaphorically, with his followers. Don't seek wealth for wealth's sake. Care for the weak. Break the rules if it means comforting those in need of comfort. This is not the stuff of predicability.

Those who think they can have a puppy like the one in the Hallmark card, or keep a child always in his bouncy seat or force Jesus into a perfectly understood and predictable box are in for a surprise. That imagined tidiness isn't real. The tiring, frustrating, messy endeavors are the real ones. The reward for a real puppy is a loyal, if irritating, friend. The reward for a child allowed to grow and change is a family of strong individuals (I'm hoping). The reward for an ever changing spiritual adventure is a deeper walk with Christ.

Embrace the hard work of life and the changes that are coming just around the corner. They enrich our souls even if it doesn't feel like at the time.

Still, think twice before getting puppy,

Michelle