This past weekend I participated in an event through my church called a Freedom Encounter. It was the culmination of a small group study I did called Freedom which was amazing.
I am a different person than I was when I walked through those doors on Friday night. I’m calmer and more peaceful, and my relationship with God is drastically changed for the better.
But do you want to know something else that’s better? My relationship with Riley.
Now, you may say, “Anysia, you and Riley have a great relationship.” and I would agree. But since I lost my car about a month ago we’ve had a lot more on-leash time together and it has been ugly. I’ve been short-tempered, irritable, and impatient. About 9 out of 10 of our 3 times daily walks have ended with me shaking angry and in tears. In fact, on Thursday I said to her, “Why won’t you just do what I’m asking you to do? You know what I expect. Why can’t you just do it?”
The Holy Spirit intervened and asked, “Does she know what you expect? Do you know what you expect?”
My initial answer was, “Of course.” But I also knew enough to know if He was asking then that was not the answer. haha
When I was in the right space to listen, I asked Him why I was having so much trouble with Riley on-leash and why I was so emotional about it, and He said, “Pride and shame. You love Riley and want the best for her. You believe the best for her is having time every day off-leash but you can’t give that to her right now because you don’t have a car. So every time you walk her you’re reminded that you don’t have a car which makes you feel like a failure personally and in your relationship with her. You feel like you’re letting her down, like a bad dog mom and a bad human. And instead of acknowledging that you have these feelings, you get mad because nothing is going right on your walks and you’re blaming Riley’s actions instead of looking at your own heart.”
Anyway, I took in the information and I tried really hard to adjust my attitude and my behavior but the walks got worse instead of better. In fact, Saturday morning when we finished our walk, I just laid on the bed for a few minutes and cried because I was angry about how horrible I felt like it went.
On Saturday afternoon, after I got home from the conference, I knew things were going to be different in a lot of ways, leash time included. I told Riley that I was going to pretend she didn’t know anything about being on-leash and that we were going to start over, then I spent some time planning and laying out how that was going to look for us until it was clear in my mind.
Sunday morning I started putting the plan into action and so far we have not had a single bad walk. In fact, even today when we were caught in a downpour, we worked through it and had a blast.
Riley is getting all the energy out that she needs to and isn’t going crazy at home because training and the kind of work we’re doing on-leash is very stimulating and it gives her the right balance of running, playing, chasing squirrels, and training; free time and structured time. I have been patient, kind, attentive, and joyful, while also being realistic about what I can handle. And we are both much happier.
What changed? Just like the Holy Spirit said, it was a heart issue for me. You can’t work harder to fix your heart. No amount of personal external effort is going to solve an issue of the heart. Only God can do that. And, when I repented of the pride and allowed Him to heal the places of shame it freed me up to see and do things in my life differently.
That’s how it works, we acknowledge and repent, then we offer ourselves afresh to God in tender surrender and God responds with healing, restoration, and perspective. From there we get to align our thoughts and behaviors with the work that God already did in our hearts. I had it backward. I was trying harder to do better because I thought it was more comfortable than repentance and surrender but the truth is God’s order of operations is way more efficient and freeing than mine, and doing things His way changes everything.
