My sister’s family has a white lab named Daisy. One family favorite past times, is making fun of my sister’s voice when she calls out to her beloved dog. Her voice registers at an eardrum bursting opera singer octave.

“Daisy, mama loves you”

Daisy knows she is the apple of my sister’s eye. Daisy knows she has captured my sister’s blind adoration. With this knowledge, Daisy mostly responds to my sister with indifference. My sister acknowledges the cat like actions of her beloved dog.  Yet this does not deter her from the continual stream of love and affirmation that is flooded to this cat …. errrr …. I mean… dog.

“Daisy, mama loves you”

Recently, we were in the dining room; this tends to be where my sister and I have our most profound conversations. I don’t know what it is about this spot in the house that elicit such divinely inspired dialogue. Perhaps this is where our guardian angels congregate? 

As my sister was face to snout with her beloved dog, providing scratches and cuddles and gazing deep into Daisy eyes:  She said to me “I wonder if this is how God feels about us.”

Mamas, don’t we all have our own Daisy-like relationship with God? Inseparable seconds, minutes, hours, maybe even days, if you are extraordinarily impressive. Then there are the long, rambling, desert phases where we pull away.  We try cozying up to people, looking for other options. We want instant gratification, and more than not, we ignore the one with outstretched arms.

Why do we pull away mamas?

Daisy likes to pull away at mealtime, like clockwork.  At the conclusion of every meal she must inspect the entire perimeter of the kitchen and dining room for any morsel of discarded food.  Daisy thinks she lives is in a food desert. Even though she has only accidentally skipped one meal in her entire life, and that was when my sister was not home to supervise

What Daisy forgets often is that the one human most enamored by her, is the very same human with access to the treats atop the counter.  Treats that far outweigh any stale, discarded scrap of food she may locate on her own.  But still, Daisy doesn’t trust this truth, and she pulls away several times a day, relying only on her weak nose to deliver a potential better food prize.

This

Never

Happens!

When do you pull away mamas? What treats are you missing in your solo desert moments of life?

“Mamas, God loves you.”