Every night when my husband and I go to bed, my husband, who never really wanted to sleep with our dogs in the first place, tries to snuggle with our Jack Chi. Every night she will cuddle with him for about two minutes and then she leaves him and snuggles up to my thigh.
My husband believes that she doesn’t like to cuddle very much. However, I have explained to him that she is a dog that wants to be close to you on her own terms. If I picked her up and put her in my arms or in my lap, then the first thing she’d do is move away from me. However, if I just let her come to me in her own time and cuddle up to me the way she wants to, then she loves to snuggle.
I would always compare her to Piper and say that our Jack Chi was easy to love, and Piper taught me how to love even when it was difficult. However, today, I realized that our little Jack Chi has taught me this beautiful lesson about love, and I didn’t even realize it. I can’t force that little dog to love me, and I can’t control it. The only thing I can do is love her, be patient, and hope that she will want to come to me and want to be close to me.
I sometimes wonder why God gave human beings free will and the choice to choose Him or not. When I see my little dog choose to be close to me, I understand. God didn’t want slaves or robots that would just do His bidding, He wanted love. If He really wanted love, He had to relinquish control. He had to let us go and do whatever we wanted to do, even though He knew we would do some horrible awful unspeakable acts and even though He knew many of us wouldn’t choose Him. However, He did hope that some of us would. To me, that’s amazing. God’s all-knowing. He knew what would happen, but He did it anyway because He wanted love to be part of the world.
That little dog has given me a great insight into how God sees me and how I should approach love. Love is patient because you can’t control or force it. All you can do is love and hope for it to be returned. But when it is returned, it is so worth it.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
