I’ve read about dogs that save their masters’ lives by sniffing out cancerous moles. Last Friday morning, I had a similar experience with Belle the basset hound.
“Similar” in the not-very-similar-at-all sense.
I got dressed, put on a pair of black slip-on shoes, and went downstairs. I took my usual place on a barstool while the kids did schoolwork at the kitchen table. Belle came over to greet me, which is a polite way to say, I scratched her ears and she smelled me all over.
She seemed particularly interested in smelling my feet.
After she gave a few sniffs and snorts, I nudged her away with my toe. Belle wandered off for a minute but soon returned to my shoes. She smelled my left foot, then right, then back again to the left. Finally, exasperated, I said, “Quit, Belle! Leave me alone!”
From my high barstool, I held out my legs to pull my feet away from Belle’s nose. And that’s when I saw it.
My shoes didn’t match.
Both were black. Both were slip-ons. Both had little straps across the top. They were alike enough to satisfy a fashion-challenged girl, but different enough to bother a basset hound.
Belle’s fashion scents may not have saved my life, but she did spare me from public embarrassment. How great to have a friend who sniffs out my mistakes! It’s biblical, really.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
Such friendship is scary. It’s hard to let someone “sharpen” me–painful to give permission to sniff out my sins. I use my introvert personality as an excuse to not get too close, when really I’m just too proud to be corrected.
But scary or not, I need friends who hold me accountable and say, “Amy, you need to work on this area of your life,” or “Have you prayed about it?” A friend who sniffs me out, even when I nudge her away–”Leave me alone!”–is a life-giving, maybe even life-saving, treasure.
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