Dirty Puppies and a Dirty Heart

I have a nine week old blonde Labrador Retriever. Her name is Ally Grace, but I call her Gracie. We found each other at my aunt's trailer in the middle of the rolling country hills of Alabama. Everything smelled like chickens and my aunt had adopted a duck, for reasons I couldn't begin to explain. I walked over to the dirty box that her new puppies were in, and all of the sudden, this blonde fluffy head popped up out of the dusty darkness. Her nose was pink and brown, and coated in mud. I felt my heart catch when her big brown eyes met mine. I immediately gave up on the brown lab that I had thought I just had to have, and I picked up my new best friend and held her dirty chubby body against my blue shirt. She snorted like a pig, and I knew I had to have her.

Gracie is a handful, just like my life. She cries a lot at night still, and she's going through the phase where she has to literally chew my arm off every time I sit down with her. I look at her sometimes and think about how alike we are. I'm a cry baby and I love to feel like I'm wanted. I need to be played with every once in a while, and sometimes I'm just plain obnoxious. All in all though, I'm just a girl who has a lot of heart and tons of spunk. 

I decided to name my blonde lab Ally Grace for a few reasons. First of all, I named her Ally after the greatest dog in the world. My Ally was a mix between a Golden Retriever and a Lab. She was beautiful and sweet, and it crushed me when we had to put her to sleep due to cancer. When I saw Gracie, I immediately saw Ally, and felt like my favorite angel was back. I named her Grace because I felt in my heart like my new puppy was a gift from God. When I walked up to see my aunt's puppies, I was walking up feeling completely broken. My heart was hurting more than I could explain and my eyes were red from trying not to cry in the car. Everything escaped from me when I saw that dirty puppy, and I felt God's breath on my ear as I reached down and picked her up.

God always has His way. Sometimes it doesn't seem clear at first, but His actions guide everything that we do and everything that happens to us. Even when I felt completely destroyed, God reached down and gave me a gift. Gracie will always love me, no matter how obnoxious I am, or how broken I may feel sometimes. Labs are a little like God's love, when you start to think about it. Just like my dirty puppy who I brought home and washed, God has begun washing away the filth of my heart. All the fears and the burdens that I have carried are now disappearing in the light of His Grace, and for that I will be glad.

Until next time, smile and be glad, because just like dirty puppies, God can wash our dirty hearts of the past.