God’s Love and a Dachshund

I looked on with no small amount of repugnance. The man sharing the park bench with me cradled his overweight dachshund’s long muzzle in his two meaty hands and, nose to nose, spoke as to a baby. I already knew the dog had stinky breath because she tried to climb onto my lap and lick my face. With the back of my hand I discreetly nudged the sausage-dog back over toward her owner.  Now she was happily panting her halitosis all over the face of someone too much in love to notice. Turning to feign reading, I listened with quizzical fascination as the man cooed:

  “How is my precious princess? You are my beautiful girl. Just look at those liquid brown eyes and those silky-soft ears. Your coat is so smooth and shiny; you are just perfect. Daddy loves you so, so much. You are simply the best little doggy in the whole wide world; you’re Daddy’s little princess”.           

      Without warning, hot tears formed and I blinked furiously to contain them. I was no longer hearing a man speaking to his dog, but God was speaking his love to me. I wrestle at times to understand how God can love someone as imperfect as me.  I don’t remember anyone speaking those tender expressions of love to me as a child when  I felt less like a princess and more like a burden. As children we believe what is demonstrated to us by the powerful people in our lives. As a middle aged woman, I struggle to erase that deep imprint on my soul. When I fail God, I fear his rejection. Intellectually, I know better, but in my heart there’s a scratchy, worn record that repeatedly skips over the same old line, “You’re not worthy” 

     Now God was showing me a profound example of His love. If as humans, we can so love and adore a smelly, oddly-shaped pet, how much more our Heavenly Father loves each one of us, created in His very image. So maybe we sometimes have bad breath, short legs or any assortment of imperfections; My Father says in his word that I am wonderfully made, that all my days were planned before he created the world. He said he knit me together in my mother’s womb, and that he is familiar with all my ways. He says he knows the exact number of hairs on my head (when I only count the grays).  I was lost, and he found me. He only wants to love me perfectly, that I may love him back-imperfectly.    

     If a picture is worth a thousand words, the scene I had just witnessed was worth a thousand pictures. Sometimes the hardest thing is to transform head knowledge into heart knowledge. Heart knowledge is integrated knowledge, it changes you. I am changed by my encounter with that man and his little dog.  My heart opened to hear God say to me,

      “YOU are my precious princess. Daddy loves YOU so very much.”

By Debra Gorman

This was written in 2010 for my blog. I am slightly more secure in God’s love for me these days.. He has blessed me lavishly.