How God Works

A man’s wife brings home a precious, if a bit unruly, stray dog. He had asked her not to bring home any stray dogs when he told her the secret back road way to avoid the heavy traffic on a rainy Saturday headed to a teacher training. The man knew stray dogs were often dumped in that part of town. She came home with a dog who had been running around in a busy intersection in the rain. She had stopped to help get him out of the street and he had leaped into her arms and that is how stray dogs get rescued.

Usually a stray has a dark side from being out on their own, but not this one. The man does not particularly want a dog and their other three dogs, do not seem happy. Over the next few years two of their older dogs pass away, leaving only the oldest and the newest, youngest member of the pack.

As time passes, the man comes to adore the curious little black terrier his wife found in the Trinity River bottoms. He is named Beckley, after a street near where he leaped into her arms. The dog adores his new mother and seems fond of the man as well. He sits, quiet as a mouse, and stares at the man’s face while he is sleeping, and when the man opens his eyes, there is Beckley, inches away, with eyes like no dog he has ever known.

In fact, the man sees his something in the dog’s eyes – eyes that know something,  maybe the eyes of loved ones who have passed on. The eyes are not the same but behind the eyes the man sees some huge love, some message and he thinks of his mother. Silly. The man thinks this ridiculous and grumbles. Beckley licks his face to say good morning and jumps down encouraging the man to roll out of bed.

The man knows he is getting older because his knees and back have started to ache and he can’t seem to work as much or as hard as he used to. He and his wife talk about traveling more and retirement. They are a little worried about having enough money for everything they want to do in a couple of years, so they remodel their garage into a living space and rent it out to travelers passing through town.

This is good news for Beckley. He loves people and demands to meet the guests as soon as they arrive. In the morning and evening, he checks on the guests and if their doors are not locked he lets himself in and leaps into bed with them just to say good morning or good night.

Somehow, all of their guests love dogs and don’t mind Beckley’s visits. Even the guests who are hesitant when meeting Beckley are eventually won over. “There really is something about that dog…his eyes, the way he looks at you…” The man begins to think he isn’t so silly.

The man and the wife begin to worry that someday Beckley, being a Terrier, will do something that annoys a guest, who will leave a bad comment, and their business will decline. Once Beckley charged happily toward a little boy and it startled and scared the little boy. The parents were not mad or scared as there was no threat, but they scooped up the little boy and Beckley looked contrite. He didn’t understand that being friendly and happy to see everyone was not the same as being good.

The man and the wife came to the decision that they needed a small picket fence to divide their back yard into Beckley’s yard and a private yard/garden where their guests could relax without interacting with Beckley, if they chose not to.

They discussed and planned but money was a little tight so they put it off. They kept planning and saving and thought they would do the project in the spring.

One day the man was coming home from work and he realized bulk trash pick up week had arrived. His neighbors were getting an early start on spring cleaning and the curbing was filling with downed limbs and things not used in years finally discarded.

On one neighbor’s curb, the man spotted a fence. He stopped, got out and looked. It was a picket fence, still in 8 ft. panels, with a shorter gate section and 4×4 posts. It was in need of some repair but seemed to have a number of good years left in it, if someone took a little time to do some patching and painting.

The man went home and got his tape measure and measured the span in his backyard one more time. Then, he walked back to the neighbors and measured each piece of the piled-up fencing. He measured it again. He stood looking at it, amazed, checking his math. The fence was two inches longer than he needed to close the gap between the corner of their little bungalow and the fence that ran along the back property line.

When he carried the pieces home, Beckley was waiting. Excited and sensing change, he ran laps around the entire backyard . The man spoke to the dog. “Beckley, you know good fences make good neighbors, eh?” The man chuckled at his little joke and Beckley stopped and looked at him with those eyes.

For a couple of days, the man played with the positioning of the fence and the gate. When his wife got home from work she would review his ideas and offer suggestions, which he always took. It had been many years since he had built a fence and he was a little nervous. Each day he grew less sure that he could do this project by himself.

Toward the end of the week he was walking Beckley and he ran into a neighbor who had three sons. Triplets. Identical. They were homeschooled and the man had known them several years. He had always taken an interest in those boys, his own three sons, now men, gone and living their own lives.

Talking to the triplets mother, the man learned that the boys had been premature by many weeks and had almost died and endured surgeries several times in their first two years of life. But now they were strong, strapping, regular boys.

The triplets, always entertaining, as the man observed them, playing and climbing and riding together. He thought of them as being like three Beckleys, just big puppies, though they were now in their mid-teens. The man tried to support their sports and scouts whenever they came around selling popcorn or whatever and enjoyed his brief conversations with them whenever they knocked.

The man told the mother about their new rental unit and how he had found a fence that would keep Beckley out of trouble even if he didn’t want to be good. The mother insisted the man let the triplets help him put the fence together. At first, he refused but the mother insisted and finally the man relented. Afraid the boys might be too young or distracted to be of much help, he thought it might still be fun to just have some boys around for a few hours.

The day came and the boys arrived with post hole diggers and a few tools. They argued some over who got which jobs but soon the man had them working in a coordinated fashion. They were smart and more than once made suggestions to improve the fence and to keep the man from making a mistake. He couldn’t tell them apart so used “hey you” a lot. The boys did not seem to mind. They took control of the job and the man was delighted to have their help.

Beckley demanded the boys play with him a little and that kept the work fun for the boys.  Beckley would drop the ball in a post hole they were digging and they would have to throw it. Beckley kept them all laughing leaping over fence sections laying on the ground and barking at squirrels.  In just a few hours the fence was straight and strong.

The man and the boys all stood back and admired the fence. Beckley went over and left his mark, which made the boys cackle.

This is how God works. A man and his wife raise three boys and hope they have made the world better by their actions and their sons turn out to be fine men. A little dog, with the kindest eyes, is rescued and soon it is hard to tell who rescued who. Three boys, triplets, are born and barely survive, and grow up strong, smart, and caring, just like the couple’s own sons. The man needs a fence but can’t afford one yet, and a neighbor throws a fence away. The fence needs 2 inches trimmed to fit perfectly. The triplets show up and help the old man build the fence.

God gives you sons but you still have to help them become good men. God gives you everything you need but you still have to work to put it all together. God gives you a fence but God doesn’t cut to square. God never takes love away, he just puts it other places, where you can find it when you need it, like behind the eyes of a little dog who needs a home.