Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: JOY (10/28/21)
-
TITLE: A Battle of Wills | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
11/04/21 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
“Stop that,” I say in a calm, reasonable voice.
He gets up from his blanket on the living room floor, walks over, places himself right in front of me and stares—he is eye-level. Impossibly, I try to ignore him, but he stands there stubbornly waiting. Finally, I look up.
“Sit down,” I say.
Now that he has my attention, he walks across the room to the door leading to the garage and stands with his nose practically touching the doorknob. He doesn’t bark. Bear rarely barks; he knows he doesn’t need to. Somehow, even when I act like I’m ignoring him, he intuitively knows I’m completely aware of his every move.
“No, you’re not going outside,” I say firmly, “Come here and sit down.”
He stays at the door for several more minutes, then ambles back to wait beside to me. He gets tired of standing and plops down on my foot and leans into me instead. The foot is accidental, but the leaning is another attempt to get my attention. I set my computer aside and scratch his ears.
“Okay, now sit down.” I say, after several minutes.
He waddles over to his blanket and lies down for about thirty seconds before persistently repeating the process.
“Come on Bear. Don’t you want to hang out with mommy?” I cajole, but he’s a statue standing at the door, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see if I’ve budged.
“Fine!” I say, tired of fighting with him. I stomp over, he steps away from the door and I fling it open and watch him walk over to lie on the two dog beds along the wall.
I love Bear. He brings me such joy, but some days he drives me crazy. He's the first anti-social dog I’ve ever known. What dog doesn’t want to be near their people, or at least in the same vicinity? Newfies are stubborn and from the beginning Bear and I had a power struggle about, well almost everything. At the park, I want to walk in one direction; he wants to go in the other. If I try to feed him dry food with nothing special added, he walks over, sniffs, and then saunters away without touching it. Baths? Always a challenge. Play fetch? Forget it. Listen when other dogs are around? Never. Pull me across the street when he sees a squirrel? Always. Even now we have this battle of wills … he wants to go outside and I want him to stay inside with me. I want him to sleep in the bedroom with us, but he sleeps wherever he wants: in the living room, in the garage, out on the deck, and sometimes he deigns to sleep on the floor next to our bed.
I was always so crushed each time Bear preferred solitude over spending time with me. Over time, I learned that he was perfectly content to stay by my side if I was grooming, playing, or merely paying attention to him. He made me more aware of my tendency to focus on things that needed done: homework, cooking dinner, laundry, exercising, volunteer activities, and so on, instead of the people around me. The Bible says to rejoice in the Lord always, and yet I realized that I can’t experience joy the way God intended when I’m too busy playing cards on my iPad or doing some other menial task, while my husband shops online or watches television right next to me.
God tells us multiple times to be joyful, and those who call Him Lord have every reason to have joy because of what He did for us on the cross, and His promise of eternity in Heaven. Yet, it is so easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day chaos that we lose sight of all God’s blessings; we forget about those people sitting right in front of us. We will never be able to find true joy in things. My stubborn little baby boy helped me to see the importance of intentionally spending quality time cultivating my relationships with God and others. Bear helped me be more attentive in my love, and now he rarely leaves my side.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
You held my interest throughout the story.
Great work!