While waiting for my book that I finished months ago to be proofed and approved, I had been busy on my first fiction novel. It is in part about Carolina Dogs. This second book may end up getting published before the book I finished months ago! I am done with a first draft of my dog book and it is in the hands of some wonderful readers. Meantime, I decided I needed a stupendous picture of a Carolina Dog for the cover of the new book. I put out a request to a Carolina Dog Rescue site I am a member of (savingcarolinadogs.org) for photos from the members of their dogs. I could not believe the outpouring of fantastic photos that flooded my inbox. I don't know how I will be able to choose just one.
So I spent the whole day going through the photos and doing mock covers of my favorites. I never got sick of looking at all those adorable rescued dogs. Every photo represented a dog that had been doomed to die, and was snatched in the nick of time by wonderful volunteers who love to save dogs. Every owner had a story about how the dog changed his or her life. One told me how the dog helped her family through a very difficult cancer diagnosis. It was such a lovely afternoon, nestled with pictures of pure love.
I read a piece by CS Lewis yesterday that said the church has moved away from its prime directive of love. It was an interesting piece, noting that many Christians speak of the Christian life as one exemplified by self-sacrifice, thus what we give up...but less about love...or what we gain. I had not really considered it in those terms before but I think Lewis is right. No one is attracted to a message of loss. But there is so much to gain in the love of Christ!
And in the love of dogs.
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or
sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day
long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am
sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things
present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
The
Lord appeared to him from far away. I
have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my
faithfulness to you.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no
compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not
forget you.
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