Dogs, Cones, and Momentary Affliction

Surely I'm not one of those people who gets a dog and immediately feels she must blog about it. I'd like to think I'm not that trite. But who am I kidding? I got a dog, and I'm going to write about him. I'm even going to spiritualize the situation. Please humor me.

Oakley is a Pudelpointer. (A hunting dog who doesn't shed; look it up!) He came to live with us four weeks ago, and I'm already smitten. Our Lab Zeke died six years ago, and it took every minute of that six years for us to muster the courage to get another dog. I loved Zeke with every fiber of my being, but he was a monster. One of my coworkers actually pulled me aside to ask "if everything was OK at home" when I came to work with multiple scrapes, scratches, and bruises. "I just got a puppy," I told him, and he seemed to understand.

But this trite blog is not about Zeke; it's about Oakley, the new pup in my life. After recently getting fixed, he was forced into the Cone of Shame. (Shout out to one of my favorite movies, UP, for giving us that clever name.) No surprise, Oakley was not a fan of the cone. He spent pretty much every waking moment resisting it. He clawed at it, rolled in the dirt with it, and mashed his head into the couch with it. He growled and barked at it. He made pathetic faces at those of us who had the power to get it off him. During one particularly pitiful moment, my husband noted the sad fact that Oakley had no idea this was only a temporary situation. To a puppy, this was now his new life, trapped forever by a torture device that kept him from licking his itches and otherwise thriving in this world.

The apostle Paul wrote about light and momentary afflictions. The troubles of this life feel neither light nor momentary. They feel restrictive, irritating, burdensome, and oh so permanent. We scrape and claw and roll in the dirt, trying to shake them. They keep us up at night. Somethings they keep us from eating. Even worse, they cause us to doubt the goodness of God, the one who could so easily "take it off."

As I watched Oakley resist and struggle, it was everything I could do not to take the cone off. Sometimes I had to leave the room, even though my heart was no less with him. But he needed the cone. It was for his own good, to help him heal. In order to thrive, he had to endure the affliction. And I knew that it was a relatively light affliction at that, one that would go away in a couple of days.

Some people are surprised to learn that Jesus flat out said that we're going to have troubles in this world (John 16:33). You don't hear a lot about that at evangelism crusades. We focus on the victories rather than the troubles, as well we should, but the fact is, we're still going to hurt. Surrendering your life to Christ in no way ensures that things are going to go your way or that you're always going to be happy. In fact, in some places, taking on the name "Christian" makes things a hundred times harder. But Jesus also said, "Take heart! I have overcome the world."

"Light" and "momentary" are relative terms. Oakley only had to wear the cone for five days, but your suffering might go on for years. It might even last your whole life. But in the context of eternal life, even that is momentary. I wonder if God ever looks at us rolling in the dirt with our affliction and thinks, "If only they knew it won't be like this forever"?

Oakley's a week out of his cone now, and I bet he doesn't even remember it. That'll be us some day. Our shame, our pain, our burdens, our afflictions--all forgotten because Jesus has overcome for our sake. Think of that the next time you see a dog in a cone.