We recently adopted a new family member- or should I say, he adopted us! Dexter, as the girls named him, showed up on our front porch one morning, nestled among several bags of old clothes we had left out for the Kidney Foundation. We had spotted him occasionally over the previous couple of days, roaming our property and drinking from our little fountain pond. I tried to run him off a couple of times that morning, but by the afternoon, he was back on the porch. When the girls found him, they felt pity & fed him. Well, now we were stuck with him!
Dexter was malnourished & flea-bitten, with several sores on his body and a broken tail- meaning he had either been attacked by other dogs, or had been abused. Either way, he was convinced he had found a safe haven here from a cruel world. He didn't take long to warm up to us, and we brought him to our vet to have him checked out. He had intestinal worms, and possibly heart worms, and they treated him for all these, as well as fleas, ticks, rabies, etc. They bathed him, trimmed up his claws, and just gave him a complete check-up and cleaning. Good as new!
They estimated Dexter is about a year old, and he is very much full of energy. He is not yet an inside dog, as he is not house-trained, and he loves to chew things... anything! He has become very good natured and playful.
I've been asking God, "Why did this little outcast end up with us? What lesson is there here for us to learn?" I'm not sure completely, but I think this might be a picture of how God's people, the Church, should be. There is a world of outcasts outside our church doors, and rather than turn away in disgust as we often do, maybe what God has really called us to do is to love them, embrace them, and allow God to use us to help clean them up. Max Lucado once wrote, "God loves you right where you are, but He refuses to leave you there." Maybe His people should do the same, like we did with Dexter.
Rob