Point taken. Too bad it had to reek.

"What is that STENCH!" I exclaimed as our dog, Ozzie, came trotting in the door this morning.  Ozzie is quite famous for getting into all kinds of trouble.  (You can read a classic involving a fish hook here).

When Ozzie drinks too much water, he pukes a little puddle of it onto our kitchen floor.  This morning it looked like that was about to happen again so I quickly hustled him outside.  I tried to avert a small inconvenience and ended up with a BIG inconvenience which reeked like scorched skunk. Seriously, it didn't smell like "regular" skunk.  Don't ask me why.

Doesn't he look so innocent and precious?

What to do, what to do??!  I scooped him up and plopped him right into the bathtub to scrub him down immediately with dog shampoo.  Dog shampoo didn't seem quite up to the job this time.   My daughter KM was home sick, poor thing, but I pressed her into service briefly as we concocted a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, Dawn dish detergent and baking soda.  Ozzie had been skunked before and scrubbing him with this combination seemed to work pretty well.

 I still wasn't sure this was actual skunk odor.  I just knew it was awful. After three washings and rinsings the dog was shivering like crazy, but he did smell more like wet dog and less like barbecued skunk.  The house still carries a bit of the unfortunate "fragrance," but it's not too bad.  And now I must admit, when I left the house and came back in, it does smell decidedly skunky.

A wet, miserable creature.

Is he begging for mercy holding his little paws so delicately?

Well, here's the funny thing.  I like to spend time first thing in the morning praying, reading the Bible, and generally trying to learn some things from God.  This morning I was reading Isaiah 55:8-9 which says, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord.  'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"  Of course, it's not good to read God's words without applying them to your life somehow, so I was thinking and praying about how to put these wise words into action.

Here are some of the thoughts that I thought:  I like to plan out my day before I dive into anything.  I like to have an idea of what needs to be done and when I'm going to do it.  Of course, very often those plans get blown to smithereens by interruptions and unexpected events of the day. This generally irks me.  I am often frustrated because I can't do what I plan to do when I plan to do it.  After reading that passage this morning, I thought, "I need to be more flexible with my plans.  God might have better plans for me today than I do.  I need to make my plans in pencil (literally and figuratively) so I'm available to 'allow' God to interrupt my carefully crafted schedule."  About 30 minutes later, cue the entrance of my stink-ridden dog.

Now I'm not saying God sent a skunk to spray Ozzie.  But He knew it was going to happen!  He knows everything. It's a good thing that  I had already decided that I needed to be more flexible when suddenly my day was interrupted by multiple dog baths, a load of laundry, a tub cleaning and taking a shower myself.  My original plans for this morning involved none of these.  But, for a change, those plans were altered and I didn't even feel the need to rant and rave about it. God didn't send a skunk, but He did use a skunk and a dog to quite powerfully highlight something He wants me to learn: flexibility and willingness to abandon my schedule for His.  Point taken!  His ways sure aren't my ways, but He knows best and I am content with that.

Ozzie, thanks (?) for the powerful  illustration!