Sunday Perspective

He looks so sweet and innocent when he's curled up asleep, but...

In the past month, my dog has run away, run away again, run away again, taken a trip to the groomer, gotten a fever, taken a trip to the vet, been prescribed two types of medication, developed a nasty skin reaction to the amoxicillin, taken another trip to the vet, been prescribed two more types of medication, run away again, been hit by a car, and run away again.

Jin does not seemed fazed by any of this. I cannot say as much about myself. I've gotten to be pretty cool-headed about Jin running away (since he does it all the time in spite of my best efforts), but the part about Jin being hit by a car on Tuesday about pushed me over the edge when he proved that he had not learned a thing and jumped out the window (on purpose! he was just waiting for me to turn my back!) yet again on Sunday afternoon.

Later that evening when I called my family and had occasion to think back on the day, Jin's latest escapade and my near-breaking point were uppermost in my mind. But in rehashing my Sunday, I had a much-needed perspective shift.

The Least Important Thing
Jin ran away. Yes, it's frustrating. And yes, he could get himself killed and I will always worry about that. But he has been remarkably lucky so far and he's still with me and I still absolutely adore him and I don't regret adopting him.

And in the end, the story had a nice ending. A couple hours after he broke free, I got a phone call. He had been found by a posse of little boys in the neighborhood, and I think it made their day. They had chased him down and tied him up to a tree and found my phone number and called me - no adults! There were about six of them, and they were bubbling with questions and stories and suggestions for me when I went to retrieve my pet:

"Is he hurt?"
"Has he been gone long?"
"Did you put up signs for him?"
"He's bleeding. You should take him to a vet."
"He knows how to sit!"
"Does he know how to shake?"
(In a very stern, authoritative voice) "Shake, Jin. Shake! He won't shake."
"Maybe he's too tired."
"Yeah, he's definitely too tired."
Younger boy: "He was running and I caught him."
Older boy: "He wasn't running that fast."
Younger boy: "I'm good at catching dogs - I've caught two of them."
Older boy: "You should't chase dogs. They could bite you."

I had a hard time dragging myself and my dog away from the kids. It kind of made my evening that, if Jin was going to run away, he was at least instrumental in the creation of a childhood adventure, and that cheered me up immensely.

The More Important Thing

Jin's escape wanted to overshadow this, but really the part of the day that was far more important and more memorable was the special stake conference held that morning in the Hill Auditorium, presided over by Elder Bednar.*

Our stake presidency had been counseling us for weeks to prepare ourselves for a visit from Elder Bednar, and I'd tried to follow their council. But I think spending six years at BYU where apostles and prophets visit campus regularly for devotionals and firesides kept me from fully realizing the import of the event until it actually happened. It's one thing to sit in the Marriott Center and hear words that are broadcast and reprinted to anyone who wishes to hear them (and I don't in any way mean to diminish that experience), but it's something else entirely to have an Apostle visit your stake, to speak with and to members of your stake very specifically. I expected it to be a great meeting, but it resonated with me even more deeply than I anticipated, and at a much more personal level, and the feeling that the messages spoken were for me personally and for everyone around me personally is hard to describe. So I won't try to describe it more. I'll just say that, at the end of the day the feelings and thoughts and words to ponder from this meeting far overrode the stress of my dog escaping.

And the Most Important Thing


I think that is all that needs to be said. I love you, Dad, more than I can say.


* Credits to Elizabeth's picture blog for the photo.