Doing a New Thing

Our sneezy dog has allergies and this year seems to be a very bad year. I give her Benadryl with her meals, but we recently switched to the bright pink knock-off Benadryl, the generic brand sold in quantities to reduce price. The bottle is the size of a small pig. At any rate, those pills must not taste as good. I noticed she spits them out and a little pink blob is left in the middle of her spotless-licked-clean-of-any- food-molecule bowl. Due to allergies as well, she had developed a hot spot on her flank, a quarter sized inflamed red skin which she licks endlessly so that the hair in that area has fallen out. So I have been putting hot spot medicine/antibiotics on the patch, and have had to wrap the pink pill in soft delicious bribes. Then I have to watch her to be sure she doesn't promptly lick off all the medicine from the hot spot. She is beginning to require as much energy as teaching Asherel's AP US History does.

Yesterday, while watching her to insure the meds had time to sink in, I called Comer to continue our interview on his WW II experiences. We are in our final week of work towards the AP exam, so I couldn't afford the time to leave the house, but I could picture Comer with his pile of notes on his knees wondering when I would be back to continue his story for my book. I didn't want to disappoint him, so the phone interview was the best option I could come up with.

"Comer," I told him, "If you think of any WWII stories you have forgotten and want to add them to the book, I will be writing for months, so just call any time. But now, I really want to know the details of how you met Evelyn. I know you want this to be just a war story, but i think it will be a better book if I can balance it out with the man you became once you met Evelyn."
"Whatever you think is best," he agreed readily.
"How is Evelyn?" I asked. I knew Alzheimers was robbing her each day of a little more of her body and mind.
"She's holding her own," he said, "I'm sitting here with her right now, holding her hand."
"So, how and when and where did you meet Evelyn?"
I settled down in a comfortable chair with my pen poised. I could not wait to hear how this tough, hardened, WWII hero, and self declared "dandy and a ladies man" met the woman who finally snared his heart.

However, I won't tell you. You will have to buy the book when it comes out. I will say, he left me laughing and cheering for the wondrous effects of a good marriage.

It is easy to forget that change is possible when everything looks bleak. I think God does that on purpose. If we weren't in dire straits at times, I wonder if we would bother to notice He extends grace and mercy. We might not know we needed it. But God makes all things new, just when we think we have no choice but to make the best of the old.

This morning I noticed that Honeybun's hot spot was a little cooler, a little less inflamed. It was healing. With now less than a week to go till the daunting AP exam, Asherel wrote her best practice essay yet, and I felt hopeful the year might end well.
My interviews with Comer have come to a point of near completion as well, with the war period in all its detailed horror now balanced with the joining of his life with a beautiful and gentle woman. So often it feels like the bad will never end, at least while we are going through it. But wounds do heal, dogs do swallow the pink pill, wars give way to peace, and kids do learn how to write excellent thesis statements. What seems impossible is always possible with God.

Isaiah 43:18-19
"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.

-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org