A Wrinkle in Time

I don’t know much about Waco’s past, only that he was rescued and living at a dog shelter called Brightside in Redmond, Oregon. He was part of a pack sent from Oklahoma to be adopted. All the other dogs had been snatched up quickly, so he was there by himself for some time. My sister Amy’s daughter, Gabby, had seen him on Brightside’s website and asked to meet him.

Gabby told me that the first time she met Waco she sat in silence with him on the floor of the “meeting room” for the better part of ten minutes. She said he never looked at her; he just stood there with his nose to the ground. She turned her body away and held out her hand. He sniffed apathetically and again, just stood there. She didn’t push but carefully took his leash and gently guided him to the yard on the premises. She went back to the shelter three times over the next two weeks to try to gain his trust. Apparently, other families were interested in him as well, but the shelter staff observed he would not allow any of them to come near him. The last time Gabby went, he snuggled up to her. She adopted him in January of 2023 at the age of two.

We all steered clear of Waco in the beginning with the understanding he had lots of triggers. But his transformation over these last two years has been remarkable. He has gone from being skittish and nippy around everybody save Gabby, to at least tolerating being in the room with people, and off leash no less.

I noticed this specifically while visiting Amy at her home in Tumalo where Gabby lives with Waco.  Beth, my Texas sister, was there too. It was a sisters’ weekend.

We were all chatting in the family room catching up on all the details of each other’s lives.  Amy sat in a chair across from me. Gabby sat on the floor to my right with Waco who sat on his haunches between Gabby and Amy. Beth chimed in from the kitchen.

Waco, looked like a regular happy dog, tongue hanging out, one black ear standing up straight and the other black ear permanently flopped forward, peacefully enjoying the company of others, and seemingly wanting to show and receive affection.

He let me scratch his chin.  That was a first.

I was so excited at this new spark of acceptance into Waco’s world that I became overly confident and went to scratch behind his ears.

Waco let out a singular jolting bark. Only one. But that one bark was so full of pain and anguish it cut me to the quick. His one bark was so piercing, I saw stars, a flash of light so bright I winced and recoiled.

I had no knowledge of his past but, in that instant, it felt like I saw through a portal right to the exact spot in Waco’s brain where abuse and neglect were recorded and an automatic response was activated.  Even though all he had experienced from his new owner in the last two plus years was love and affection, safety and structure, care and concern, that specific trigger spot along with the automatic response remained intact. I wasn’t fearful. Waco did not snap at me. He wanted love and affection, but he could not NOT respond any differently in that moment to that touch.

That bark seemed to rip the galaxy and I saw into my own psyche and my trigger areas and automatic responses. I saw how my own “bark” had been manifesting in so many reactions toward people who may have been just trying to show me love or were just there and unaware. I felt overwhelmingly remorseful for my reactions and at the same time immensely compassionate toward myself and others.

Paul recognizes this aspect of our shared humanity in Romans 7: 19-25, when he states,

” For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope.”

Sometimes, it seems like I cannot NOT respond any differently than to bark. When I am overly tired or overly committed or have had a hard day, old tapes begin to play, lies bubble up in my brain and melt away the cement that I thought was permanently covering my old painful neuron pathways. I bark. And usually, it is directed at my husband or my kids or the poor customer service person on the other end of the phone just there to do a job.

There were so many layers to that moment that day. I experienced a cinematic telescoping time warp in which in a flash backward I saw all the wrongs done to me and the wrongs I have done to others, my family’s unique generational sin, all the way back to its inception in Noah’s tent in Genesis 9, and incredibly simultaneously, the flash forward of God’s long suffering and compassion, His way of redemption, not stopping at the cross but pushing forward to glory yet to be revealed. It was a nanosecond but so powerful that I could not move.

I sat trembling and weeping, trying to take in the whole experience. I could see the pain of sin all the way back through the ages and the wonder of Jesus as He is described in Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s nature. Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

I am playing that bark and that other worldly glimpse over and over in my mind and am awestruck by the tender mercies of God.

Simply put, I saw Grace.

Maybe you feel at the end of your rope. You recognize your bark and don’t know what to do. You have tried everything: self-help, therapy, medications, books, distractions, hobbies, alcohol….food. And nothing is working. Maybe you are asking is there no one who can do anything for me?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and did and does.