Blinders and Healing

A few years ago, I had to get my dog, Sam, neutered. I love my dog. He’s a mutt that I brought home from Central America. He’s not with me right now, but one day we will be reunited! I was going through a time of healing when Sam got neutered, and God taught me an interesting lesson through Sam’s ordeal…

I brought my happy-go-lucky dog back from Honduras who had never known a fence or a leash. He was getting used to those two things in his new-found American home, when he came face to face with an American tradition for dogs… I never wanted him to meet that knife, but it was his inevitable fate…

He had the operation, we came home and I thought all would be fine. Well, not so… he ended up trying to “heal” his own wound and licked out the stitches in the process. As you can imagine, the wound swelled up. I had to take him back to the Vet and they put an “e-collar” on his neck, which is the equivalent of a lamp shade, in essence, with the purpose of keeping him from licking the wound since he would no longer be able to reach it with the lamp shade in the way. To add insult to injury, they made me keep him in his kennel as well, so he wouldn’t run around and aggravate the wound. This and more went on for about two weeks. I took him back to the Vet twice in these two weeks. Eventually, he did actually heal and all is well today…. But oh the lesson that was learned in the process…

One day, I went out to care for him and God opened my eyes to a truth He was trying to teach me in my own life. I let Sam out of his kennel to move around a bit and I just watched him. First of all, he was very disoriented. He had this big lamp shade on his head that he didn’t understand, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Here I was, seeing it all, with a picture from beginning to end of what was going on. I knew what happened in the operation and why he needed to be neutered. I knew why he needed the medicine, the e-collar, and why he needed to stay in the kennel. I also knew just about how long all this should last before he would be well again. I understood that he had to endure all of this in order to get to the point of full healing…. I had the full picture in view.

That being nice for me, from Sam’s perspective, did not change his situation at that moment in time. From his point of view, as he looked up at me, all he knew was that life had drastically changed. It had changed so suddenly and he didn’t understand any of the full picture that I was seeing. All he could see was this lamp-shade blinder on his neck and he was disoriented to the point of, “What do I do???”, “How do I proceed?”. As he came out of the kennel, all cramped and uncomfortable, he knew he had to go to the bathroom, but he almost forgot how, under the circumstances. With this blinder on, he couldn’t go in the way he was used to. This made him just stand there, immobile, for a few minutes. Then he began to bump around into things, trying to figure out how to proceed with this obstacle around his neck.

As the days went on, I saw more and more of myself in Sam, and God in the position I was in as Sam’s owner. I was dealing with my own “life-wound” at that moment in time, that needed to heal. God began to show me that He had drastically changed my life too, and for the moment I was a bit immobile, trying to figure out how to move forward with this new situation. God knows how long it will take for our wounds to heal. He also knows that without an “e-collar” blinder, we would try to heal our own wound by “licking it to death”, only resulting in truly making it worse. So the blinder stays put for that season, for our own good.

As time went on, Sam did become a bit more used to the blinder, a bit more able to function. Each day, I would take the blinder off and let him go to the bathroom, which was interesting as well. God does the same with us, He gives us glimpses of life restored – after healing is done and we react in different ways. As soon as we go to the “wound”, however, he puts the blinders back on, for our own good; just as I did with Sam.

Funny, at the end, when I finally took the lamp-shade off for good, it was a freedom call for Sam. At first, he was a bit disoriented; then he ran and jumped for joy. When he finally stopped and sat down for a moment, his nose went to the wound to check it out… only to find that it was completely healed and there was no more need for his futile attempts to heal it on his own. At that point, he left it alone and did not lick it anymore. He was healed and free.

God is the same with us. One day, He will take the blinders off and we will run and jump for joy! We will also be pleasantly surprised that our “wound” is healed and we don’t have to make futile attempts to heal it on our own. What a profound and mighty God we serve, that He heals us in ways we cannot imagine while all along protecting us from ourselves!!