Dogs and Prisons

Today will be a sleepier day as 4 of us got next to no sleep last night.  We had quite the adventure....

Lately, our son has become a little lazy with the dog walking since it's so cold and has been just opening the door and letting the dogs out (we still have one puppy left and she stays inside with us at night).  Each time, we warn our son not to do that.  Instead, we say, put on her leash, she's going to take off!  Ah, the foreshadowing....

Sure enough, last night, he opened the door just before 11 pm and let the Mommy dog and her puppy out.  The puppy came back.  The Mommy did not.  Not good.  I was unaware of this as was my husband.  Then, around midnight, we got a text from my daughter and my son saying, "FYI.  The dog is missing.  We've looked everywhere...."  How was I supposed to sleep after that?

I didn't know if I should wake up RM, but I did anyway because everyone else had given up and gone to bed!  How could they sleep knowing she'd be outside all night!?  We'd never see her again for sure and besides, what if she was hurt?  Being outside all night would have definitely made things worse, especially if we found her in the morning.  I couldn't sleep knowing she wasn't found.

RM was not happy, for so many reasons, but he got up, which I had hoped for.  Meanwhile, I also got up, got my son back out of bed and even my daughter.  We turned on our flashlights and started looking.  Somewhere in the process, my husband got an idea.  The gator.  She LOVES the gator. It's our farm vehicle that we use all over the farm to drive from one end to the other.  Whenever she hears it, it makes her nuts!  She barks and barks like a crazy dog.  He figured if she was still ok, and not hit by a car or stuck somewhere, she'd come running.  Good plan!  But I was still worried.  So my daughter and I went in for a doggie prayer meeting.  If she was gone for good or possibly dead, it meant $10,000 to my son.  He had paid for all his schooling with her puppies and then some.  I prayed that my son wouldn't have to learn a lesson in responsibility the hard way.  I surrendered everything to the Lord knowing He would have to find her.

Within a few minutes of turning on and driving the gator out to the field, we had our dog back.  Alive and well.  She had been having a great old time, just running to the farthest end of our property.  Then I was mad.  Glad she was back, but so mad at her!  However, she was given a warm embrace by all.  The story had a happy ending, my son had learned a valuable lesson and it was only 12:30 a.m.!  I somehow managed to fall back asleep fairly quickly, but morning did come much sooner....

I have learned more lessons from Jeremiah though and I think even this dog story can apply.  Jeremiah had been put in prison in chapter 37 having been falsely accused of lying about "deserting to the Chaldeans".  Verse 15 says, "And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made into a prison."  I read that line over and over again, how Jonathan's house "had been made into a prison".  I started thinking about how we can turn something that is good into something that imprisons us.  A house isn't supposed to be a prison. 

Homeschool moms can sometimes feel like they are prisoners in their own houses.  Actually, homeschooled kids can feel that way, too, sometimes.  But what I've learned over the years of homeschooling is that it is all a state of mind.  If you think you are imprisoned, you are.  I have never felt that way, I've loved homeschooling and having all my kids with me in our home all these years.  However, I know I have created other prisons for myself.  Lately, I've felt imprisoned by frustration and, dare I say, anger, at times, when things don't go as planned more days than not with these challenging tots who are still at home with me.  There are no bars of iron around me, but I can still feel them sometimes, which is even harder to deal with when they aren't tangible bars.  For some, it can be being imprisoned by anxiety, or fear, or comparing oneself to another, which I've done many times.  I asked the kids to give me ideas of what they thought could be prisons in our home and they came up with all the same ideas I had.  They got it.  They understood the prison image.

Back to the dog.....today I could be imprisoned with fatigue, grumpiness at not having enough sleep or anger at my son for not being more careful.  I could easily put bars up around my state of mind and choose to be locked there all day.  My prayer is that I will not allow that to happen, but instead that I will choose freedom.  It reminds me of one of my favourite Psalms in the Bible, 107.  Verses 10-16 describe a prison:

"Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons....Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress...For He shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the BARS OF IRON."

The iron bars can be shattered for me today.  I don't have to be in prison in my own house, in my own mind.  God may not take away my fatigue, but He can give me a new state of mind.