August 15, 2025

I got a text this week from a close friend, who lives in North Carolina. She wrote, "Things are so bad, I had to get an emotional support puppy!" The text was accompanied by a photo of the sweetest, squishiest, little guy you've ever seen.

In a way, my friend was joking. She has always been a dog person - bulldogs, specifically - and when her beloved, beloved, old bulldog died about a year ago, it was just a matter of waiting for her tender heart to be ready again. Which took some time. So this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. Yet, in another way, she wasn't joking at all. After a series of texts back and forth where I needed to know everything (his name is Stanley, named after the Stanley Cup as they are all big hockey fans, and he's 9 weeks old), my friend said, "Maybe love really is the answer after all. It's the most simple, and hardest, thing.

I think she's right.

My prayer for us this week is to continue to do the most simple, and hardest thing: to keep our hearts open. To continue to do our best to love our neighbors. To continue to believe, as Jesus did, that it makes a difference. That it might be the only thing that does.