I am an elderly blind pug

Life has been a little chaotic of late.

I don't thrive on chaos, it unnerves me and I crave my familiar, safety net - my routine rhythms that lull me back into safety.

I've been thinking about that a lot recently, how maybe it takes true wisdom in Him to recognize that when you in the midst of the chaos, you Praise God for that time.

Because you know it will be a period of growth, that kind of growth and sharpening that only trials can produce.

I'm evidently not there yet. When faced with chaos I thrash and moan like a toddler being told to nap when she would much rather play.

So, having come out of the other side of a month away from my family, unexpectedly - in another country...I craved to come home and settle back into the normal rhythms of my everyday.

Trouble was, it just wasn't happening.

In the midst of yet more home-based chaos (at least I was home though PTL!) I realized that our blind elderly pug was refusing to go outside and do...well, what doggies need to do outside, because it was around bonfire night and fireworks were commonplace in the skies around our home.

After a whole day of her refusing to go outside because it was either raining or loud because of the fireworks, I was at my wits end.

At 10pm after all the fireworks had stopped, I carried her out to the garden and gave her the cue to go 'pee pee'

She promptly ran under a bush and hid and my heart broke a little.

Realising that she was not going to willingly undertake this mission, I decided to force things a little.

Harnessed up and lead on, with pockets of doggy poop bags - pug and I walked the streets in the rain until she was ready to relieve herself.

The more I walked, the angrier at God I became.

"I've only just got back!! I'm jet-lagged, tired and now worried that pug is going to give herself a bladder infection if she continues to hold it in..."

Stomp, stomp, stomp...more rain...

"Why are you allowing all of this??! Why can't I just have a break??! I'm exhausted, Pug hates me because I've dragged her out, in the cold and the wet in the dead of night..."

"Why can't YOU give me some direction for my life too?? I feel like I keep asking you for your will on my life and all I'm met with is silence...."

"But no, nothing...and now here I am walking a blind, scared pug through the streets late at night - she has no idea that I'm doing this for her good!! She has no idea I love her so utterly and I want the best for her, which is why I am doing this! She has no idea that I am actually leading her to something better right now..."

And then it hit me.

I'm the blind pug.

He is leading me - through uncomfortable places that I don't want to go - because only HE knows that in order to get to where I need to be, I need to walk this path.

Just like Pug can't see where I am leading her, she keeps walking and she keeps trusting that I will get her there safely - as much as she doesn't want to go there right now.

Would she choose to be out in the rain at 10pm at night having been worried by the fireworks all night?...No, she would rather be tucked up beside me on the sofa snoozing away.

But for tonight, this was the path we had to take, to make sure she was healthy.

Pug did eventually do what she needed to do so we could go home, but not without the huge lesson I learned following us.

His ways are not my ways, but trust in Him I must.

When the world stops a little..

The message from a dear sweet friend, the kind of news you don't see coming.

Especially when she is just 37.

Especially when she is healthier than most of my friends put together.

Breast cancer.

The sting of those words makes me feel giddy and much of what she said next over the following 20 minutes is a blur.

I realise barely anything is going in, so I grab a pen and start to write...

...doctors meeting...next Thursday...treatment options....

a whole 8 days to ponder this vile diseases implications with no more knowledge. 8 days of anxiety and sleeplessness. 8 excruciating days to get through.

She is calm, she is factual, she sounds like she is talking about a verruca not cancer. We end the conversation by laughing at something strange - like we always seem to. We find humour in things that are often not funny, its how our friendship works, its who we are and despite the earthquake of a diagnosis which has rocked the foundations of the world right now - we laugh.

So the countdown begins. The countdown that will lead to answers - is it anywhere else? how aggressive? treatment options?

Until then we wait and we pray.

We attempt to see our sleeplessness as a call to pray. We thank God for all the blessing he has provided for us and look to Him, for the comfort we all are craving.

We seek the 'Peace that surpasses understanding...'

And we wait.