Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Grrr! (01/28/10)
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TITLE: A Lesson Learned | Previous Challenge Entry
By Philippa Geaney
02/04/10 -
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It really was because,
Of all the dreams I could have dreamed
I dreamt I was a dog.
‘You’ve really blown it this time dog’, the Pound Master slammed the cage door shut, ‘your owner will turn his back on you for sure. You’re meaner than a junk yard dog.’
He slapped a black tag on the door of my cage and strode off laughing. Condemned – that was me.
He was right of course. Yesterday I’d lost the plot and growled the big time growl - GRRR! It was not a grr that said ‘don’t do that, I’m feeling cross’.
No, this was the gale force, hair raising variety.
But I was a human then and now sometime during the night, I’d become a dog. Strangely it all seemed to blend seamlessly into the series of events following my confrontation with a fellow worker yesterday.
I will not elaborate as I expect I would slant the story my way. Suffice t say I was very angry. And I expressed it.
Do junk yard dogs always feel grotty as well as mean? I certainly did. And that fact played no small part in reminding me I needed to business with the Lord.
Despite repentance I remained unsettled and grotty. My last words before sleep mercifully closed in were ‘where are You Lord?’
So here I am a canine. I lay on the hard concrete floor wondering how I’d landed myself in a cage. There was no explanation – although a vague sense of wrongfulness swirled about me and all around misery lashed her cruel scourge; making fellow creatures howl. I lifted my head and joined in. It was inarticulate prayer.
‘What makes you say she’s mean?’ Footsteps approached my cage and a man wearing a name badge ‘Joshua crouched down outside my wire door.
‘She vicious. Growls at us whenever we go by her cage. She’s a threat. I insist she is put down.’ The Manager was full of bluster.
I lifted exhausted canine eyes towards the man called Joshua.
‘It’s not good behaviour I’ll give you that’. Joshua looked me straight in the eyes and asked ‘what happened girl?’
That he should care amazed me far more than the fact that although I was a dog I could read and comprehend what he was saying.’
‘I get aggravated when people are lazy. If they don’t care at all, I growl.’ A dog speaking? I never paused to think; although I had automatically answered for yesterday’s womam. Joshua seemed to understand.
‘And afterwards? Your behaviour towards the workers in general?’
I wasn’t sure if he meant my growling in the dog pound or my behaviour with fellow human workers.
“I want them to release me’. I kept it simple.
“You want them to approve of your growling? Would that release you?’
‘Yes, I always need to hear that I am very brave and deserve to growl considering my provocation.’
Joshua nodded and opened the door of my cage. There was no where for me to hide. I simply waited for his blow.
But he reached his hand. ‘I’m going to call you Soul. You are wounded Soul. ‘
He bent down and whispered in my ear. ‘In your anger do not sin (Eph 4:26 NIV). Every word carried its own soft dawning.
‘So the GRRR! It didn’t make me the junk yard dog? I looked about wondering why I was here.
‘Why am I so guilty over the ferocious GRRR?
Joshua seemed to want me to answer that myself as he made no reply. When I couldn’t, he answered with another question.
‘What did you do with this guilt?
I dropped my head in shame. ‘I went barking and growling to other workers trying to justify the GRRR and release myself of the guilt.’
Joshua shook his head... ‘Only GRRR if you can live with it quietly Soul. Because the Word states ‘He who covers and forgives an offence seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates even close friends’ (Pr.17:9 AMP).
‘Ahh. I repent Lord.’ A treasured revelation; we sat in silence as I soaked it in. I hardly noticed I was a woman again.
‘Coffee time COFFEE TIME!’ My bedside alarm yanked me from my dream but now my contemplation was as sweet as His Presence which enveloped me.
Sometimes a Grr but seldom GRRR!
Is justified as love
But repeating the matter to sooth my soul
Separates me from my Friend above.
(748 words)
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