Sammy

Here's my dog.  He loves to hang out inside the house.  He's getting better about just laying there rather then following me around.  He stays so close when we walk that we need a lot of maneuvering room ... he is a big dog ... and seems even bigger inside!  My daughter told me that he left "lick" marks all around the edges of the puzzle on that glass table top!  Big silly.  He definitely does dog stuff when I'm not in the room.

Great dog ... Great Pyrenees

Following noted later in the day:

Today I am thinking about something I read a couple of years ago ...

The Haidmaid's Tale. Creepy. Compelling. Chilling. By Margaret Atwood.

"To want is to have a weakness. 

(a separate idea:)... It's this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. ... I want to know what he wants." pg 136.

............................................... 

To want ... is weakness.  (And weakness as where one's heart is vulnerable to assault to varying degrees, and I think it is a good part of what makes us "human" ... so, not weakness as a flaw or a fault. I think Lewis refers to this as want/need.) I noted here because I do believe that.  Whether for good or for bad, want manipulates choices. You know how you read something and it stands out, but you don't click in on why?  That's what  happened.  The words struck a chord. And then again later in her story I want to know what he wants.  My roommate in college  was the only person I have ever known to use the expression "curiosity killed the cat".  I remember it as though it were yesterday, she was warning me about something, but of course young me couldn't hear that, young me was emotionally fearless ... I answered, "They have nine lives right? Musta been finding the answers that brought him back ... ."  She laughed.  I was happy to amuse, but truth is ... I think I get it, the idea of being enticed by wanting to know.  
I want.  I want to know. 
Sometimes, probably even most of the time, that's an okay trait.
I think it's interesting to see that here a couple of years later ... Some things, not many things but certainly some things, just grab my attention and I lock on.  That could be detrimental.  I was the sort of young woman who figured that I could probably "fix" stuff ... broken stuff, because I really do believe that we humans are supposed to pour our love in to on to each other ... loving was/still is easy for me.  And I thought if you just kept on pouring your love on to a person that eventually they would be healed by love ... and I don't mean that as my love, I mean that as ... probably as God's love flowing through a person towards another person.  Someone talked to me once about energy exchanging in relationships and I think it sounds a little like emotional vampirism, I see that idea as very different from cushioning someone in love while they heal.
I'm thinking about whatever that is exactly that God says about being made strong in our weakness. I think I better stop and go find that exactly ...
  

 ⁹But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.~ 2 Corinthians 9 and 10

... that's exactly it.
I actually understand that idea.  I have wanted my way towards weak ... I recognized where weak flew me to and I asked God ... not to take my want away (I have done that before, either just made myself stop wanting or asked God to help me not want ... like with smoking because I thought I didn't want to go where smoking was most likely going to take me ... yeah, that surgeon general stuff ... anyway, that's just an example) ... to help, for help ... help please ... and what happened was spectacular. I'm not saying I went looking for trouble, I'm saying my natural inclinations sometimes take me to where trouble is.  As soon as I recognized where I was I asked for help.  I wanted something.  We all want something and I know that is perfectly good sometimes, but sometimes we innocently find ourselves in over our heads.  Maybe with  hardships that dealing with is just more then we know how to or are able to handle ... difficulties too difficult . And I guess that the only valid place to learn anything about His grace being sufficient ... or the coolness of His power at work on our behalf.  I still want exactly what I wanted when I found out about weak.  It doesn't bother me to leave in in God's hands.  It feels safe there, and I don't have to think about how I'm going to get something that God's holding safe in His hands.  And something else cool about that ... God made good out of something that might have been really bad, and I know there is  scripture about that ... it's cooler to see it happen then it is to read about the possibility of it happening.  That's what I'm thinking about.