Yesterday, we were heading home from picking up our new puppy. While Scott was driving, the baby yellow lab fell asleep with his head on Scott’s leg. In the middle of this, Scott asked me to look at a post on facebook. When I turned on my iPhone, the first thing that popped up was the sign, “Hold On, God is doing something…” Often these God posts roll across my facebook news feed. They sometimes make me smile, but rarely does one arrow through my heart. Staring at Scott with the puppy, it hit me. God was definitely doing something here. The day before, Scott had run over May. Our last little dog. The tiny brown and white terrier everybody loved. May was special. Irreplaceable. Now she was buried alongside Mercy out under the oak tree on the back of our farm. The day it happened I could hardly speak to Scott. Could hardly speak to God. Too many dead dogs. Too many heart wounds. I told Scott that running over our dogs was hard on our marriage. Every little dog I ever loved growing up my dad ran over. Now my husband was doing the same thing. Big men in their big trucks crushing my little dogs. Crushing me.
Now here we were a day later in Scott’s big truck with a new puppy on his lap. Only God could do this. My husband isn’t a dog lover. He tolerates dogs because he knows they’re good for our family, but dogs aren’t his thing. Now driving home, Scott said, “This is going to be my dog.”
As Scott said this, I stared at the “Hold On, God is doing something” sign on my phone. That’s when the message arrowed through my heart. I looked out the truck window across the mountains leaving Paradise, California where we picked up the puppy and saw the Sutter Buttes way down in the valley and thought, a little piece of heaven just came to earth. A soft puppy snuggled on my hard husband’s lap. Thank you, Jesus for your unfailing love. Only the Lover of our Souls gives these kind of gifts to sinful men. 
When I say sinful men, I’m including sinful women here. The day May died, I was so upset with God. At first I tried to hide how I felt, but it was there ripping up my heart and I finally confessed it to Scott that night in our bed. “I forgive you for running over May,” I told him with tears soaking my pillow. “I forgive you because I want God to forgive me. I’m mad at God. I know this sounds awful, but it’s in my heart and He already knows it so I might as well say it. I’ve been dealing with my dogs being run over all my life and I’m sick of it. I asked God to protect May and He didn’t and I’m so hurt.”
“Hold on, God is doing something…”

   So here is what God is doing… My husband falling in love with a dog after years of simply tolerating them. Both Scott and me falling deeper in love with the Lover of our souls after suffering this week. The God who gives us precious gifts even when we don’t deserve them. Always when we don’t deserve them. 

Today in my devotion, Steams in the Desert, George Mueller, at more than 90 years of age, said this, “I was converted in November 1825, but I didn’t come to the point of total surrender of my heart until four years later, in July 1829. It was then I realized my love for money, prominence, position, power, and worldly pleasure was gone. God, and He alone, became my all in all. In Him I found everything I needed, and I desired nothing else. By God’s grace, my understanding of His sufficiency has remained to this day, making me an exceedingly happy man. It has led me to care only about the things of God. And so, dear believers, I kindly ask if you have totally surrendered your heart to God, or is there something in your life you refuse to release, in spite of God’s call? Before the point at which I surrendered my life, I read a little of the Scriptures but preferred other books. Yet since that time, the truth He has revealed to me of Himself has become an inexpressible blessing. Now I can honestly say from the depth of my heart that God is an infinitely wonderful Being. Please, never be satisfied until you too can express from you innermost soul, ‘God is an infinitely wonderful Being!'”
I often seek advice from my devotions. From men and women who have gone before me seeking God too. At the end of long and faithful lives, these men and women say, God is forever and always good. That I can know with certainty that what I suffer in this life has meaning. That I can release May and my other lost dogs knowing God is doing something… Something hopeful. Something good.