Rockfest Day 20 - Ring Around the Collar

I have a little black and tan dog named Gracie. I adopted her from the city pound a few years ago when she was a puppy. I don’t know what breed she is specifically but she has lots of Border Collie in her genes. She’s great at herding me down stairs and staring at me for hours. The staring part can get a little disconcerting after a while. It’s like living with a stalker.

Gracie loves toys. She loves to play tug of war with them, pull out the squeaker and pull out all the stuffing (she calls it “brains”). She is very happy when my freshly cleaned living room is full of brains and toy debris. But what she loves more than her toys is her collar. She is crazy for her collar.

Every once in a while I will take off her collar to give her a chance to be free. To give her neck a chance to rest from the constant rubbing and her ears a rest from the constant clink-clink of the tags. She has great, crazy hair and I love to run my fingers through her scruffy coat when she is collar-free. She looks like a small wolf and I want her to have the chance to roam around looking like one for a little bit.

She hates it. She hates to have her collar taken off. She will mope around, hide under the bed and generally act as if she has done something wrong. I don’t really understand this reaction. I would think Gracie would love her freedom, but she hates it.

She gets so excited when she sees the collar in my hand. She will sit very still and stare at me with those wonderful light brown eyes and give her tail just a tiny wag imploring me to put her necklace back on. And she is so joyous after I do. She struts and prances around, runs crazy all over the house as though I have showered her with love and put a diamond necklace around her neck. And perhaps I have.

Without the collar Gracie cannot tell the world who she is. She cannot tell the world that she belongs to someone and someone loves her. Her collar gives her an identity. When people see her with her collar they can call her by name. Her collar says to the world that she is mine and I am hers.

What Gracie does not know is that she does not need the collar to do those things. Her collar does not make me love her more. Her collar is not what makes her mine. She has belonged to me and me to her since the day I adopted her. Nothing will ever change that. She is free to roam wildly about collar and tag free and she would still be mine. I don’t need the collar to know who she is and what her name is. I have known her from the beginning.

We don’t need collars or name tags ourselves for that same reason. Our Heavenly Father loves us and adopted us from the beginning. We belong to Him and He belongs to us, and nothing will ever change that. We can destroy all our toys and throw all the brains and debris around the room and our Father will still love us.

When we roam about in the world we don’t need a collar or necklace to identify who we belong to, our actions will tell the world who we love and in whose house we live. We will be “known by our fruits.” (Luke 6:44). We don’t need fancy jewelry to indentify who we are; our Father knows each of us “by name.” (Ex. 33:17).

I understand Gracie’s hesitancy to be without her collar. It’s a scary world out there and I am not always within barking distance to hear her when she’s lost. If she gets separated from me the collar is reassurance to her that she will get home. When we find ourselves lost and separated from our Heavenly Father we must remember that He is always within barking distance of our voice. In fact, we are never truly lost, it just feels that way; He is right beside us wherever we go, always was and always will be. (Gen. 28:15, Matt. 28:20).  We are free to roam this world and be who we were created to be and our Father will always be there for us. 

With his love and the freedom that brings, our Heavenly Father has given us something much more valuable than any diamond necklace. Gracie’s right, that does make me feel like strutting and prancing.

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