Humble Pie

As I sit here and type out this post, I am eating myself a large slice of humble pie. Last Thursday we re-homed our sweet little pup, Tikka. It has been an adventure filled couple of months for our family, and while we surely laughed more than we have in a long time, the overall stress of a new puppy on our family was too much.

For some reason, through all of the grief and sadness of losing our dads this year, getting a puppy sounded good to us. Like, if there was ever a time that kids needed a dog, it was when both of their grandpas went to heaven. Surely, taking a puppy out a dozen times a day to go potty, getting up in the night to take her out, convincing one child over another that it is their turn to pick up the poop, breaking up arguments over who's had her in their lap longer, cleaning potty from the carpet, and retrieving shoes and socks and fingers from tiny sharp puppy teeth would distract us all from the grief? Right? Wrong.

Embarrassingly, and with great humility, we now realize that we are not ready for a puppy. We are blessed, so blessed by the health and well being of our little family right now, that it is okay for that to be enough. To concentrate on letting God help us work through our grief one day at a time. And maybe, just maybe one day we'll find the right time for a dog (not a puppy!) to join our family. Until then, we are going to perk a little extra coffee to wash down the humble pie, and let God's amazing grace do the rest.