An Inconvenient Love
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever gone from discomfort to devotion?
At the risk of sounding heartless, I’ll make a bold confession: For most of my life, dogs made me really, really uncomfortable.
They were fine at a distance, or if they were super old and gentle. But most dogs are boisterous and messy, and they like to lick and slobber and jump up on you. There’s very little sensible control when it comes to dogs, at least in my experience with them. (And of course, my experience also includes once being chased by a pit bull up a tree, clinging to a branch for dear life—an experience that still makes me shudder to remember.)
My husband, Matt, brought a huge German Shepherd named Scout to our marriage ten years ago. Scout helped me get used to dogs and learn to appreciate them. But while Scout was my first dog, he wasn’t really “mine.” He was Matt’s. I wasn’t “Mommy,” even though Scout loved me. I was part of the pack, and I belonged to Matt in his eyes, so he loved me too. But he was fully grown and trained by the time I came along. When he passed away a couple years later, I was sad, but Matt was devastated.
Then, in 2021, I decided it was time: I knew how much Matt missed having a dog, and in my heart of hearts, I knew I needed to bend and grow. I needed to understand what it was like to be a dog person as well as a cat person.
So we adopted Captain, a fuzzy, floppy-tongued, six-week-old German Shepherd puppy … and just like that, my world turned upside down.
That first year was one of the hardest in my life. I learned firsthand how to do everything that goes with having a puppy. I had no idea how much work all the training would be! But in that work, I also learned what it was like to truly know and come to fully love Captain.
We’re at a sweet spot now, almost three years in. And today, I’ve learned what it means to be a dog mom. Captain is definitely my baby. When I get home, he brings me his toys and whines in utter joy, and my heart leaps at the sight of him. When he’s scared or bored, he cuddles in my lap (I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s the size of our cats). Sometimes I wake up and have to give him a big kiss, just because. As I write this, he’s curled up next to me on the couch, sighing contentedly.
Now, my cats are amazing… I adore them. When I get home, they sidle up to greet me. They blink with their cat smiles and show how much they missed me in their own special kitty ways. “Welcome home, special human one,” they seem to proclaim majestically.
But with Captain, it’s different. It’s like his whole world was wrecked when I walked out the door, and now that I’m home, life can start anew.
“Everything is right in the world again because you’re here, Mom!” he tells me with his wild, enthusiastic eyes as he vigorously circles me again and again, covering every inch of my pants in dog fur.
My cats loved me and missed me, but life still went on. But for my dog, it was like a piece of him was missing the whole time I was gone.
It got me thinking about how we humans love and treat each other in this world.
Imagine with me a moment: What would the world be like if we all were to love each other like a dog loves us?
Minus the licks and doggy slobber, I imagine it would be a lot like we all used to get along in kindergarten—curious, mostly friendly, and boundlessly enthusiastic.
And yet that’s usually not the case with adults, is it?
Many times we greet loved ones with barely more than a quick “hi” before rushing on to whatever else we need to do. We avert our eyes in stores rather than make small talk with neighbors, and lie “oh, I’m great!” when someone asks how we’re doing.
And that’s just social courtesy. What about really showing love… caring for others in their sickness and hunger, sharing our basic life needs together, such as clothing or money or shelter… how does that look?
It usually looks quite different from what I believe our savior intended.
In Matthew 10:25-37, Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our hearts and our minds and our souls, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. As an example, he gave us the “good Samaritan,” a man who cared for a perfect stranger in an extravagant way, tending his wounds and paying for medical care.
There’s nothing convenient about this kind of love. Loving this way, loving like the good Samaritan, is decidedly inconvenient.
But honestly, that’s how my dog loves—like the good Samaritan. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing when I get home. If he’s asleep in the corner with his foot in his mouth, he wakes up and races for me. If he’s scratching himself or eating a treat or having some silent communication with one of our cats, he drops what he’s doing and races for me.
He stops everything because I am there. Nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter what I look like or smell like, if I’ve been spending time with other dogs, or if I’ve been gone for a couple of days. It doesn’t matter if the last time he saw me I scolded him for being naughty.
He just loves me and he’s happy to see me—period.
Do I love the people in my world that way? Sadly, sometimes I don’t. Grudges get in the way or my own selfish concerns.
But what if I were to model a little bit of my dog’s kind of love? What if I treated others, those I love and those who are strangers, with the same boisterous care and enthusiasm my dog bestows on me?
I imagine the world would be a much better place… the kind of place Jesus commanded us to create.
This week, let’s see what we can do to love each other better, whether our inner circle, our neighbors, or strangers we encounter.
Let’s love from a place of inconvenience. That’s what Jesus would have us do.
Today’s verse: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38 NIV).
A prayer: Lord, please help me to love others with wild, boundless, extravagant care, knowing that the love I show reflects Your perfect love. Amen.
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