Woof, woof, squeak, woof!

It’s Toby, the spaniel, here – I thought I’d help Mum out this month and write her letter for her. It’s the end of July and she is about to have a week off and has got loads of things to do before then, including this page. So I’ve commandeered the computer . . .

I’m quite well behaved now I’m nine-and-a-half, but I used to get a bit overexcited sometimes when we were out on walks off the lead. I’d find a nice smelling trail and whizz off to follow it, and then realise that I’d gone too far away from Mum and couldn’t find her. But I could always here her voice calling for me, and she’d climb through hedges to find me, and often end up scratched and cut.

What made me think most was that she was always really pleased to see me. I thought I’d get told off but instead she was always happy to have found me.

I’ve heard Mum talk about two stories in the Bible that tell us that God is like that. Sometimes we get distracted by all sorts of things and wander away from him – it was a wandering sheep in the Bible and a boy who left his dad and older brother at home – but when God finds us he doesn’t tell us off for disappearing but rejoices that we have come back. And he longs for us to hear his voice calling us back.

Occasionally I would pretend I couldn’t hear Mum calling if I was having fun. Just like my little friend Millie, who is only eight months old. She looks up to me, so I have to be good now in case she copies me. I sometimes forget when I’m with her, and she starts to chase the hens and I join in – that’s a good game for us dogs but not so good for the chickens. But when she’s chasing them, she goes remarkably deaf and won’t listen to any of the humans calling her back.

Mum thinks we sometimes forget to listen to God or close our ears because we want to do something that isn’t very helpful. But I think the worst thing is when we don’t hear God because we haven’t got time. It’s like those days when Mum goes out all day. I know she still thinks about me but it is a bit lonely not having her with me. She can only be with me or not with me, but the great thing about God is that He’s cleverer than my Mum – he can be everywhere with all of us at the same time. It’s just that sometimes we don’t notice that He’s there with us.

 

With woofs and wags, Toby