First published December 2025 as a Christmas message
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5
Hello Friends! I haven’t written for the blog in over a year and have missed hearing from you with your comments and insights! Many of you know that this year has been filled with both highs and lows. In April, I became a full-time caregiver for my father, who had been diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer the previous July. It was a blessing filled with trials, sadness, and laughter. In September, my eldest daughter and I sat by his bedside watching him take his last breath.
As many of you have experienced yourself, being a caregiver not only takes up your physical time but also your mental and emotional time. The thought of researching and writing was a dim, distant light this year. Recently, that light has burned brighter with each passing day. My prayers have included this burning desire. I just today began gathering materials for a possible study in Romans. I don’t know where it will lead but I know being in His Word is always fruitful.
As always happens when I start pondering writing with more fervor, the Holy Spirit nudges me and reveals truths to me. Today, in fact, just a few moments ago, was no different.
In my Truth for Life devotional (Alistair Begg), I was challenged like King David, to repent and humble myself. To stop covering lies and let God cover them for me. I wrote that I don’t love God as I should, nearly enough. It was a hard truth to write but one that has weighed on my mind for some time.
And because God often uses vivid illustrations to bring His point home, both my dogs approached me while I was sitting indisposed in the bathroom. I say “both” because my dad’s dog now lives with us. A dog whose fur is the exact color of my late mother’s hair. A dog who has lived most of his life in an unhappy home, full of strife and anger.
As both came to nuzzle against my knees, I begrudgingly petted Ben – my dad’s dog. Yet when my dog Tucker put his cold, wet nose on my skin I leaned in to snuggle with the big lump. Tucker wandered off and little Ben laid close to my feet. And I felt that Holy Spirit nudge on my heart.
You see, my allergies have gotten terrible with a second dog. And after just one day of my new carpet Ben peed on it in two places. He’s kind of neurotic and yelps at the slightest movement. He follows me around breathing heavily and anxiously wherever I go. He wanders off when we are at the beach as though he’s forgotten what I look and sound like. His bark is sharp and annoying. He’s underfoot and overly needy.
And I don’t love him like I should. Like he needs.
Ben is cute as a button. But I don’t want to love him. I don’t want to give myself fully over to him. He represents a terrible past that I just want left behind.
In that moment, I realized Ben wasn’t really the subject of God’s lesson. I was. My reluctance to love him revealed something deeper: I don’t love God the way I should. I stand at arms-length from Him. Because if I were to truly love Him, I would have to give all of myself to Him. I would have to accept both the blessings and the trials that come through His hands. I would have to give up my fears, my prejudices, my preferences. I would have to go “all in.”
While God may not sneak over to a corner and pee on my new carpet, He might bring people (or dogs) into my life that will. People who need mercy, forgiveness and love. I know this because He put me, a broken, sinful person, into other believers’ lives. And I pray for their mercy, love and forgiveness towards me.
Ben, sweet goofy Ben, needs a lot of love and patience. I need a lot more Zyrtec. More than that, I need a lot more Jesus. I need to love Jesus a lot more than I do. So, I prayed for forgiveness today that I don’t love enough the God who sacrificed His Son for me. Who has forgiven my yelping and my anxiety. For making a mess on beautiful things.
While I know the coming year will be full of unbelievers doing terrible things, I also know that God will be at work. He will be in the tears and the laughter. His glory will be available for anyone to see. And I want to see Him, trust Him, and love Him in every season, every place, and every circumstance.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Ben and Tucker
