are you a dirty dog?

i had the pleasure of reading harry, the dirty dog with one of my kiddos today. for those of you who are unfamiliar, harry is a cute little white dog with black spots that loves everything ... except baths. to avoid the dreaded torture, harry steals the scrub brush, buries it in the backyard, and then runs away from home. he proceeds to traipse across town, getting into trouble in all the messiest places possible - tar, coal, smoke. by the end, he’s so dirty that he’s black with white spots instead.

then harry starts wondering if his family misses him at all, and decides to head back home. but when he gets there, his family doesn’t recognize him. he does his normal tricks, but they still don’t believe that it’s him. so he digs up the scrub brush and shows them that he wants to take a bath. that’s certainly not something that harry ever would have done. but as the water washes away the layers of dirt, they soon discover that the dirty dog is truly their beloved harry, home again, safe and sound. all clean, he can curl up on his bed, resting securely in the presence of those that love him.

for me, the story quickly became about much more than just a dirty dog and his family. it made me think about how we can sometimes run away from the ones whom we love the most, and who love us the most, just because they ask us to do something that makes us uncomfortable, even if it is for our own good.

we run off on our own, thinking we know better. it might be fun at the time, but we wind up looking like tainted representations of ourselves. by the time we come back, our loved ones don’t even recognize us any more. we can say and do the right things, but they still don’t really believe that it’s us. it’s not until we are willing to humbly submit ourselves to their love and care - no matter how uncomfortable it might be at the time - that we can fully come clean and enter into the fullness of relationship again.

our family and true friends like us just the way we are, and miss us when we’re gone, or when we become anything other than ourselves. our identity doesn’t change, no matter how many layers of foolish wandering we may accumulate, but we become hard to recognize when we’re living out a life not our own. the truth is, things are going to be hard whether we’re at home or out seeking new adventures. we have to learn to be content right where we are, difficulties and all. in the end, the peace that comes from resting securely among those who love us is far greater than the temporary pleasure of avoiding those difficulties.

if home is where the heart is, what a great gift it is for your heart also to be where you lay your head.