Loyal Love Waiting

I am always greeted by the dogs exuberantly, always. It is a joy and sometimes a burden to open the door to so much love. It is a joy when my heart has been broken by the assaults of the day and there the dogs are with wagging tails and unconditional regard for me. It is a burden when I am carrying eggs and they can't contain their joy and smash into me.

While being the recipient of so much loyal love is a balm to my soul, it is even more touching to be reading a book and watching the dogs waiting for some other, absent family member. Lucky tends to go to sleep, but Honeybun will often sit in front of the front door in an expectant pose. Her ears are perked forward, listening for any sound of the Beloved's car. Her muscles are tensed, and she shifts position but never alters her steely, unblinking gaze. She watches and watches, and waits, hopeful.

A sound inside the house may cause an ear to flick back, but then she shimmies slightly back and forth, and returns her full attention to the place where she knows her Beloved Family always return. I have seen her in this expectant pose for hours. When the absent ones return, she and Lucky both embrace us with their complete joy, an offering of devotion and love that no human I know can equal. Lucky brings us a bone, which in his mind is the equivalent of an anointing of the purest perfume. Honeybun licks us- something she never ever does except in those uncontrolled first moments of ecstatic greeting. Both dogs tails are thumping so wildly that they sometimes lift off the ground and hover momentarily.

I wish I could greet others with that unabashed love. I wish others would greet me with so much unconditional delight. I wish I could wait so patiently and determinedly for the presence of my Master to enter. I have never understood how anyone could not love dogs. They are in my mind the perfect example of how we should treat each other, and how we should behave before God. We should be always loving, always forgiving, never judging, always delighted to be in each other's presence, always humble, and always expectantly and joyfully waiting for our Master's return. We should always approach the Master as though there is no one else that matters. Life is complete in His presence no matter how empty the water bowl is or how many times we have been kicked off the leather couch.

Our reason for existence is to serve and to love the Master. Well, Honeybun winks at me and adds one small caveat- "Don't forget to tell them that I know it is the Master that feeds me."
So perfection in motive is not possible on earth, but it comes closest in dogs. I could do much worse than model my behavior after Honeybun.

2 Kings 20: 3
³ “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” 

Habakkuk 3:16-18

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.