Can I Keep Him?

"Mom! He followed me home. Can I keep him?"

I don't know how many parents have heard that line but I am guessing they are legion. Mine was a rather large golden brown dog I roped on my way home from school shortly after I started First Grade.

"Can I Mom? I'll take care of him, I promise. Can I call him Bullet?"

Roy Rodgers vied with Superman for my #1 Hero at that time and I could think of nothing more fulfilling than to have my very own Bullet. Mom immediately began calling to see if anyone was missing a dog while I prayed (yes, prayed) she would come up empty handed. Either my prayers worked or the owners were too relieved to be rid of him as we soon had a new addition to our family.

Bullet lived in the unfinished basement to our house which also had open holes where the windows should have been. Dad said I shouldn't worry about Bullet running away at night, but, now that I think about it he was planning a strategy for careful removal.

One day I found a new toy in my back yard - did Santa work on days other than Christmas? A couple days later my secret Santa left yet another toy. I thought this was really cool until a couple days later when a rather angry parent knocked on our door to tell my Mom I was stealing toys from his yard. How? Seems I had trained my dog to steal them for me.

Turns out Bullet was my secret Santa. Needless to say Bullet was sent to a farm for the good of the preacher's character in town and I learned there was no such thing as mid year Santa's.

Not everything we want is for our good. We have parents to teach us that lesson while we are young. We have God's Spirit to reinforce that lesson as we get older. My prayer has become, "God please give me what I need so I can help others have what they need."