The past two years have been very difficult for my family. It started with my brother passing away. Then, I lost my business. Each hardship seemed to lead to another. Our house burnt down, my Mom passed away, my wifes' grandmother passed away, and lastly, my dog, Freckles, got hit by a car. We lost her too. Through it all, I fought that ever-familiar urge to scream out to God, "Why?" Freckles, though, was the straw that broke the camels back.

You see, through it all, Freckles was my anchor. No matter how bad things got, when I walked into my house, my little beagle puppy was there for me. She would, no matter what, come running down the hall, crying out and barking like I had been gone forever. I would always spend five minutes or so just sitting down in the floor, letting her crawl up in my lap and loving on me. She was the one solid thing in my life. She was the one thing that was nothing more or less than joy for me every single day. She kept me going.

There's a funny thing about Freckles, as well as most dogs. If you spend their entire lives feeding and loving them, they will  love you no matter what. Even if you get mad at them, they still love you. It is possibly the purest form of love that I've ever seen. When she died, I finally broke. I sat there holding her beside the road, crying like a child, begging God to wake me up, or at least to take me too. I had finally had too much.

That was about a month and a half ago. I'm just now getting to the point where I can talk about it. I've spent endless hours missing my Freckles and wondering what purpose there was in God taking her from me. I was finished with the world. The things that once mattered, no longer did. Money became nothing to me. Popularity became pointless. Fame and fortune were useless wastes of time. My dreams all fell apart.

Then, recently, I began to realize something. The culmination of the last two years of my life led me to being completely and utterly done with this world. The things that the world offered were of no interest to me at all.

Colossians 3:2-3 says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

This was truly a revelation to me. This season, beginning with losing my brother and ending with losing Freckles, was necessary. Don't get me wrong, the pain is still there. I still lie awake at night wishing my little Puppy was snuggled up next to me. I still want to call my Mom and just talk or call my brother and invite him to go arrowhead hunting or metal detecting. I still want all that, and I still miss it so bad that it still brings me to tears, but now I understand the necessity of it. God made me step back and take a look at what the world offered as opposed to what He offered. Now, He is my only reason for being here. The world holds absolutely no joy and/or fascination for me anymore. I can see now.

In the end, I pray every night. I ask God to protect my family, to keep them safe. I ask Him to forgive me my sins and to help my friends through their hardships. I offer him my services as was meant to be. And I've asked Him one extra thing on occasion. I asked Him that when my work here was done, that I might walk through the gates of Heaven and find my little Freckles running up to me, barking like crazy, wanting her Daddy to sit down and love on her for eternity. I believe He has granted me that wish, and I believe that He is taking good care of my puppy for me. I thank you ,God, for that.