While we Have Today

Yippeeeee! Snow! We got an inch or two yesterday, but the big wallop is expected this afternoon. My cross country skis are ready. I woke early, leaped out of bed and looked out the window. No snow yet...and also...something else was missing. Honeybun was right on my tail, as always, eager for breakfast. But...where was Lucky?

He had been acting weird again yesterday, prowling the house and nosing over things, following me around, begging for me to pet him continually. He followed me into my bedroom last night and then pawed and scratched and whined for me to let him out of my bedroom just as I drifted to sleep. Stupid dog.

But this morning, he was not on his couch, not on his alternate couch, not on the forbidden couch, nor on the forbidden guestroom bed. (for Lucky, 'forbidden' means 'not while they are watching'.) I opened the back door and called him. No Lucky. I went out in the frigid morning and crept in the darkness, pushing bushes aside and looking under the deck. Had he crawled out here to die?

If so, he had hidden himself well. I went out the front door, thinking maybe he had escaped the fenced back yard. No Lucky waiting in the cold snow. I woke my husband and told him Lucky was gone. As he was getting dressed to go search for Lucky, I opened the front door and called again. I was feeling very remorseful. When Lucky had been asking for all that attention, had he been saying "Goodbye" and I hadn't understood? We never know how long we have with those we love. How could I have been impatient with him for all his whining, and bumping, and following, and then waking me (again) the night before? What I would give to have it all back now!

Oh how sorry and sad I was! And then, a wet cold Lucky rounded the corner at the side of the house and pranced up to me wagging his soggy tail. I have been given a second chance. I was so happy to see him alive that I didn't even scold him for climbing the fence on the coldest day of the year so that he could shiver in the snow and freak us out when we couldn't find him.

God was speaking loud and clear to me. Those we love are not guaranteed to always be here. In fact, it is a guarantee that they will not be, not on earth. Love them as God loves us, in all their sin, and irritable quirks, and annoying habits. Love them today because today may be all we have.

My cross country skis are waiting by the door. If it snows, as soon as there is enough, I will seize the day and latch on those skis. In Charlotte, snow today may melt by tonight.

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Romans 13:8

⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

Deuteronomy 5:24

²⁴ And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them.