Forward Blog
Poop on the floor.
May 15, 2019
Author: Ryan Hodgins
The sweetest dog we’ve ever had is a cute chocolate lab mix. She longs for attention and love, and she always wants to be next to me. All she wants to do is make me happy. If I turn around, she is there. If I sit down, she sits next to me. If I lie down, she wants to lie down with her head on my lap.
Sadly, I am not as sweet as my dog. Sometimes when I am having a bad day, I ruin the day for other people. I hate to admit it, but I’ve even treated my dog badly for something that wasn’t her fault.
There was an incident a while back when we were training our little chocolate lab. I’d had a rough day, and when I came home and let her out of her crate, there was poop everywhere. She’d been in the crate too long and had an accident. If you’ve ever had a dog, you know what it’s like when they make this kind of mess. It was the worst.
The last thing I wanted to do was clean up a bunch of dog poop, clean the carpet, and give the dog a bath. Not my idea of an evening at home. So there I was, cleaning and bathing and washing. And yelling at my dog. My sweet, loving dog who is always by my side, my loyal companion who only wants to please her people. She put her head down, put her tail between her legs, and whimpered.
My hard heart melted.
She wasn’t sure what she had done, but she knew it wasn’t making me happy. She felt shame. Shame so painful on the inside, you could see it on the outside.
Sometimes this is what our mess does to us. We are so ashamed on the inside that it’s visible on the outside.
Shame is a messed up thing. You know that feeling of guilt that makes you hurt inside and makes you feel worthless? That feeling when you have done something so wrong that if anyone knew who you really were, surely they would want nothing to do with you? Yeah, that shame. It’s a liar.
What you did may have been bad. It may have been something you are not proud of.
But not to worry.
Your shame doesn’t have to hold you down.
Acts 3:19 says, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,” NKJV.
If we repent, our sins will be blotted out. There will be no record of them at all.
If Jesus — the Son of God — could die for you, there is nothing you can do that is so big, so ugly, so horrible that Jesus’ blood won’t cover it.
We don’t have to be afraid of the poop in our past; it has been cleaned up. No yelling. No shame. No questions asked.