Ever feel like you’re stuck or alone or both? This week I share a REAL moment with you from a few months ago. If you ever need encouragement, you might not need to look any further than your sweet pup.
And check out The Bible Recap that I mention!
Transcript
Julie Jackson
Hey, welcome to Happy Tales of Happy Tails, the podcast where you’ll hear stories of the way pups have touched our hearts and our lives. So for the next few minutes, let everything else go and just listen and smile. I’m your host, Julie Jackson. Good morning, friends and welcome to Happy tales of Happy Tails. I just wanted to share something with you all this morning, just kind of a thought that I had, an experience… I don’t even know where to start. Bear with me. I just rolled out of bed. But we had a little dog Roscoe. And I’ll talk more about Roscoe later. And he was just a really special guy. We lost Roscoe about two, almost three months ago, two and a half months ago. It was really sudden. And he was also just one of those once in a lifetime kind of guys kind of dogs. Also just a little bit of history. I like to make things I like to build things. A while back. Our dogs, Roscoe included, he only had three legs, so he was handi-capable. And some of our girls are getting older. And so we sold our bedroom furniture. And I designed and built a king sized bed that has a built in set of stairs, so the dogs could get up there to be with us without having to jump. Then afterwards, I thought, “I think it would be fun just to build a little dog bed that looks like a little doggie day bed that matches that”. So I built it and thought, well, I might sell it because our dogs aren’t going to use it because they’ve got a king size TempurPedic that they allow us to sleep in that I just built stairs to. We kind of ended up just putting that day bed, eventually in our room. But for a while it didn’t get any use. And it just kind of sat there. And then suddenly little Roscoe started using it. He would always come up and snuggle with me. But sometimes in the middle of the night he would go and that was just kind of his place. And the way it was positioned, it was positioned across the room from the foot of our bed on my side of the bed and it was offset just a little bit. I’m on the right side and it was offset just a little bit to the right. And Roscoe would lay in that bed with his little head looking towards the foot of our bed and almost like he was peeking around. And I would lean over to the right and he would look up at me and he would just be watching me. So he was kind of my little guardian angel from the foot of the bed down on that little doggie day bed that I built. And sorry, I’m gonna get a little emotional. So Roscoe got very suddenly sick, we weren’t expecting it. And he declined really quickly. And he spent the last the last days of his life, and literally the last day of his life, in that bed. So it you know, it just kind of became Roscoe’s bed. We bought a little TempurPedic pad to go in it with the other pad on top of it to make it more comfortable and everything. So it’s a really nice little bed, but that was kind of his spot. Roscoe has been gone. And so the bed has just sat empty. Ricky, my husband leaves really early in the
mornings for work. So he’s up in what most normal people consider the middle of the night. He said, “Hey, a couple times I’ve gotten up and Barney is in the bed”. I was like, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah”. I’ve never I’ve never seen anyone else use that bed. It just sits empty. And he goes, “No, I think Barney is using it”. So let me go back and tell you a little bit about Barney. We sometimes refer to Barney and his brother, Chuck, collectively as “the floofs”. They’re ridiculous. They’re Husky, Malamute, German Shepherd, white Swiss Shepherd, Arctic wolf mixes. They’re beautiful and they look like they would be these regal, amazing, stunning dogs and they are ridiculous. Their personalities are so different. Chuck is very chill. Barney is very busy. Chuck saunters. Barney tinks. Chuck is the aloof floof and Barney is the king derp. He’s the one thatk you know, will look at you with this huge smile on his face and his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. And Barney has these little… his eyes are a little more closely set together. And it’s so funny because we joke that he has shifty eyes. And I even, because he’s very mischievous, I always refer to him as a shifty mother fluffer. There’s just something about his little face though. He has really, they both have really, sweet faces, but his little face is, he’s got this little face that’s irresistible. And it has to be because he’s SO bad. Anyway, I’m trying in the mornings to ease out of bed. You know, they always say that it’s best to, you know, and I don’t disagree with this, to eat the frog, to jump out of bed and do the thing you dread most Just get it over with and, and that’s, that’s a really, really sound plan. But it doesn’t really work for me sometimes because it’s just it’s too… I feel like I’m crashing into my day. And also I will find so many excuses to not get out of bed, just because I’m not excited about what I’m about to go do. So what I’ve started doing recently, is instead I do what I look forward to. I listen to podcasts every morning of scripture verses well, I listen to the verses, and then a podcast that just talks about what those scripture verses covered. Shout out to The Bible Recap. And it gets you through the Bible in a year. If anyone’s interested, super great podcast and program! Sometimes I love to just start that before I get out of bed and just lay there and listen to it. And then I’ll start with some prayer and meditation. Sorry, I’m not sure who’s joining us, but there’s someone in the background that that is chiming in too, I think it might be Lilly. Anyway, then I’ll just have some prayer and meditation and maybe read for a little bit. You know, there have been some things lately that have, I’ve really just been struggling with. And there’s some things that I’ve been in prayer about for a really long time. And, for whatever reason, God’s holding me here, you know. I’m learning to trust and, and, hopefully have more patience. So this morning, I was just really kind of in prayer and, and kind of, in that that place of, “Okay, are you earing me? I know you’re hearing me, but at the same time, I just have that doubt. And I don’t now if you’re hearing me.” Then I heard this, like, unfamiliar noise. And I thought, “What, what was that? That’s weird”. And I lean over, I’m sitting in bed, and I lean over just a little bit to the right. And peeking at me from that dog bed was Barney’s sweet little face, watching me, just like Roscoe did, in the same spot where Roscoe used to lay. And Rosco was kind of my guardian angel, in a sense, and whenever I was struggling, he knew and he would always reassure me, he would always snuggle me. I know it sounds crazy. But it was such a sweet reassurance. “Yes, I’m here. There’s, you’re still being watched over. I’m still with you. I’m hearing you. I’m not ignoring you. You just have to wait. But in the meantime, here’s this ridiculous derp to wait with you.” So I guess well, I love the stories of the ridiculous things they do. And you know, all the countless things that we found in our bed that don’t belong in a bed. I love the times too, that God uses dogs to remind us that we’re loved and that we’re important, and that we’re valued and that we’re appreciated. And in today’s case, that we’re heard. So anyway, thanks for bearing with me, as I’m being kind of a blubbering idiot, but I really appreciate your listen. Have a wonderful week. Go home, love on those dogs. See all the wonderful things they bring in your life and smooch pooch. Thanks, y’all!