Understanding Motives

When Arvo went to see his mom at the Assisted Living Home last night, he found her fallen on the bathroom floor. She hadn't used her call button to summon a nurse before trying to stand, despite all our days of nagging and reminding, and two beautiful impossible to ignore hand made signs. Five hours and a few stitches above her eye later, they returned from the hospital. She is lucky a cut above her eye was the only injury. One friend suggested motion sensors to alert the nurses that she is trying to stand up. I suspect they won't let us handcuff her to her chair, so I will be exploring that suggestion of motion sensors today. The sad thing is that lovely private room on the quiet hall overlooking the crepe myrtle trees is probably in jeopardy now. They may need to move her to a more closely watched, semi private room. If she is unhappy now with the loss of independence, I can't imagine how she will feel then....

I had been with her for several hours in the middle of the day. She hadn't gotten up, or eaten. I helped her up, and sat with her while she ate a bowl of cereal and bananas I made for her. At first she grimaced at me, but then she ate it all. It was the first meal she had eaten since the morning before. I settled her with her feet up and the Olympics on before I left. And I reminded her again how critical it was that she use the call button if she wanted to get up. She had promised she would. I asked her if she wanted to come home with me and spend the day with us, but she was not feeling up to it.

She was not the only one not eating in my life. Of all the crazy new developments, the once starving rescue dog, Honeybun, has now started getting picky. After three years of living with us in the lap of luxury, she has realized she doesn't need to worry about meals drying up. She seems to have suddenly understood that no matter what, she will eat at least twice a day. And I made the FATAL mistake of pouring chicken broth on the dry food last week for a special treat. Today, I put down the dry food and Honeybun walked away from it. I stared at her. Honeybun never turns down food. Yet she followed me and stood in front of the refrigerator where she knows the yummy chicken broth is stored. I poured a little on her food and she wolfed it down.
Lucky watched her, and I could tell he was thinking, "Brat!", though he goes on hunger strikes in attempts to challenge our dog food selection on a regular basis.

It is hard to understand Mom K's motives. Why isn't she using the call button, why isn't she eating the delicious food they bring? It is not hard to understand Honeybun's motives. Once again, dogs are so much less complicated. God might have been better stopping the creation of life forms once dogs were created, but then, who would open the chicken broth box? In the end, we have to move forward, often a little blindly. We often can't know the motives of our friends, or even our family, any better than we know the motives of God. Yet we have to live sometimes trusting that the motive is good and makes sense at least to them, and make the best of what we are given when we are given it. And hope for Divine Intercession, or at least spicing up the dry nuggets with tasty broth.

Romans 8:26-28 (NIV)
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. [28] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.




-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org