Tricked Into Treasuring Trash

I’ll spare you the more repulsive details… . .

Only enough to provide a framework for the lesson Miss Jackie acted out for me as we took an evening stroll. The thermometer blinked a forty-nine degrees and the sun shone overhead. A warm hat and fuzzy gloves warded off the chilly wind as we headed in an easterly direction. 

Miss Jackie is oft sidetracked by smells and explores and birds and such. I pulled ahead, though she covered more ground in her wild abandon. Turning to look back, I see her standing in the road, a silhouette against the sky. Puzzled, I try to make out why her shape is so peculiar. She stands stockstill, then begins a quick trot in my direction. As she pulls closer, I emit a loud, “Ewwwwww, Jackie! Take it back!”

She’s discovered Treasure Indeed in her doggie world. She carries a cow leg in her mouth. Hoof still attached, with hair and skin eroding away to bent and angled bone. .

She gives me a funny look, but obligingly drops her discovery. “Leave it,” I command.

With a lingering sniff or three, she pads beside me, then ahead.

We reach our goal and turn back west. We must pass the nasty cow leg by to return to our doorstep. Jackie runs ahead. I see her in the distance as she reaches “the hoof”.
Delightedly she seizes it with renewed enthusiasm!

I have to laugh as I watch her. It’s no small object to drag along. Particularly when carried by mouth.

I reflect inward as I watch her tote this bony burden. How often is that me? I carry lies or failure or shame, holding them close as if they’re an important part of me. “What treasure!” I seem to think, instead of observing the conglomeration of decaying-skin-and-bones-and-stinking-untruth it really is.

How often do I lay it down, only to pass back by again and all too eagerly snatch it up?

Tricked into calling trash, Treasure.

And Jesus gently leans down and offers grace-filled advice, “Leave it. For Good.”

Galatians 5:1 ~ “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

“My precious Savior suffered pain and agony,
He bore it all that I might live;
He broke the bonds of sin and set the captive free,
He bore it all that I might live.
He bore it all that I might see His shining face,
He bore it all that I might live;
I stood condemned to die but Jesus took my place,
He bore it all that I might live.” ~ J.R. Baxter

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