Annie is my border collie. She is sweet dog, but she has a thing for trying to get our of our fence. We have the tallest fence ever because she can jump like you wouldn’t believe. Since she can’t jump over the fence anymore, she now finds other ways of getting out. Usually she waits until the five-year old goes through the fence (easy target) and makes a run for it. Today I left her out while I went to get Samuel from school, I was gone like 30 minutes. When I came home she was still in the fence but I noticed that the gate had claw marks on it and pieces of wood were missing from it. So, I checked her front paws, to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself. Apparently she wanted out. When we got inside I noticed little red marks of blood all over my floor. It was coming from her back paw. My mom came over and helped me get the bleeding stopped and she is okay now. I have no idea how she managed to hurt her back paw.

I started thinking about how crazy she is. She is only two years old and really still just a puppy. She just wants to be out of our fence all the time. I don’t really know what she likes so much outside the fence. She is obviously so determined to get whatever it is, that she will hurt herself to do it. It’s a lot like me sometimes. I am so determined in what I want to do that I will hurt myself in the process instead of waiting for what God wants for me. I am so sure that what I have is not as good as what is outside my fence that I am willing to risk my safety and health to have it. We all engage in risky behaviors to get what we think it best for us. Like my chocolate addiction. I will eat chocolate, because I think I need it to survive, and will do so until I have a tummy ache at times. My husband so lovingly pointed out yesterday that I had single-handedly eaten an entire pound of dark chocolate M&M’s in like a week. (they were dark chocolate though, that is supposed to be good for you, right?) I know it’s shameful and not healthy for me at all, but I do it anyway, because it’s what I want to do. It’s the same with our toddler, Joshua. He will do things like climb on the table because he wants to not realizing that it could hurt him and then get mad at us for getting him down and telling him “no”.

My point is that we all are convinced, at times, that we know what is best for us and God doesn’t. I can’t see what might be on the other side of the “fence” that I want, but He can. If I will just allow Him to guide me, then I will save myself so many hurts. But instead I try to go about things my own way and I get hurt. If only I could learn the same lesson that I am trying to teach my dog and my toddler. lol.