Life lesson from Bear the dog

Just when you think and other people think you don't have it in you to survive a challenge of this magnitude...out of the blue God gives you a great big dose of guts and you just handle it. And sometimes you surprise yourself and those around you, that God has given you "the stuff" you need to get through it. The best way I can describe how I was able to muster up the strength and courage to endure this is to tell a little story.

When I was in college I worked at this amazing camp called, Marietta Baptist Camp. During most of the summers that I can remember there were two dogs that lived up there, a cute little Border Collie ( I think named Molly) and a Rottwieler/basset hound mix, named Bear. Bear had the body of a Rottweiler and the legs of a Basset Hound. His big skill was to find the quietest, coolest place and sleep all day. I loved Bear the most of the dogs because the cute collie got all the love and everyone said Bear stunk. So through the years as a camper and a counselor I would give Bear some love and extra hugs, not knowing that the love I gave to him would be repayed to me in a most unexpected way. My last year working at Camp Marietta, I was the Camp Program Director. One of our jobs was to walk around camp each night and check cabins. Each night Bear would walk with me, but would only get to about two cabins and then he would find a soft spot and go to sleep. One night when I was walking back to the Guest House (where we stayed), I heard some dogs barking but did not see anything, all I saw was Bear coming over to me. Just then I looked up and here came three "feral" dogs. In an instant Bear turned from couch potato to a cage fighter. The hair on his back stood up and he growled like a true Rottweiler. As the group of dogs tried to come up to me, Bear blocked them with his body and snapped and growled feriously at them. Knowing they had met their match, the dogs ran off. Bear turned to me I gave him a big hug and got a slobbery kiss in return. He then trodded up to the Camp office porch and laid down and went to sleep. Bear did what was in him, but he never knew he had.