It Must Be There

I wouldn't have expected to learn a lesson about faith from a ball obsessed English Springer Spaniel. But, I did.

For days now, Maddie has been obsessed by something under our bed. We figured it was a ball. Both of us have looked several times for whatever it was she was searching for. We looked in the day, we looked at night with the aid of a flashlight. We looked even though we'd already looked and knew that the only thing under there was a stray sandal and a dust bunny. Still she would try to get under the bed to look herself.

Frankly, I was beginning to think she was losing her doggy grip on reality. And, yes, we were becoming fairly irritated at her continued, borderline frantic search for something that clearly wasn't there.

The beauty of this story is she didn't have to see it to know it was there. She believed it was there. Her instincts (and no doubt her nose) told her it was there. Still we questioned her sanity.

So, as we lay there last night she had her head under the edge of the bed whining. I decided to look from another angle. I looked down from the top of the bed by the headboard. And low and behold, there was her prized ball, half way down the box spring wedged between the bed and the bed frame. It couldn't be seen, but was right where she thought it would be.

She didn't have see it to believe it. She simply trusted. We should all be more like that.