The Gentle Leader.....

I have a new personal trainer.  Her name is Kiah.  She is AWESOME at her job!  She has only had the job for twelve days, and  in spite of a holiday and a 2-day stay in the ICU for my hubby, I have only missed walking with Kiah ONCE!  She is an incredible motivator.  (FINE!  I will admit the real motivator:  $$$$$.  The vet told us the more she walks on asphalt the less often she will need her nails clipped.  Since we're a little nervous to clip them ourselves and I am a HUGE penny pincher, the motivation of saving money is what has me out there walking that girl nearly every day!)  And as long as we're being truthful here, I might as well also admit, I'm not walking her... SHE is walking ME.  It is actually getting a little irritating because she pulls TOO hard on me!  I mentioned this to my cousin (my resident animal expert), and she offered to bring me her Gentle Leader when she came for Thanksgiving.  Well today I used it for the first time and WOW!  She was right!  It is a WORLD of difference!

Kiah wearing her Gentle Leader

The basic idea here is:  The Gentle Leader allows me to control Kiah's head and once I control her head, I am IN CONTROL!  I wonder, do they make a Gentle Leader for children???  How about husbands???  I digress...  So this morning my walk with Kiah was nearly perfect!  (Except for the part where I realized TOO late that the dogs at the end of the cul-de-sac were out...  it took ALL my strength to get that girl turned around and I was PRAYING the whole time that the owner of the other dogs would realize what was going on as they had left their property and were slowly but LOUDLY approaching us.  YIKES!)  Other than that she walked without pulling and there was slack in the leash the ENTIRE time!  Brittany's wisdom of, "If you control the head, you control the animal." kept running through my head and it got me to thinking... then praying... any crying a little too...

I started praying, "God, please be my Gentle Leader!  I want you to control my head so that you are in control of ALL of me."  See I started to realize that this whole thing called life... A lot of it is a head game... If Satan can get into your head and make you worry, doubt, or fear... If you give just an INCH of your brain to worry, doubt, or fear... It is over!  The worry, doubt and fear control you.  However, if you give God control over every inch of your brain, peace flows in... the peace that passes all understanding.

Now according to my cousin (and she hasn't been wrong so far), after a while Kiah will get so used to the Gentle Leader not allowing her to pull that she will forget to pull without the Gentle Leader and eventually she will even walk by my side without a leash.  We'll see about that.

But, I think that happens with God too....  I think initially we might pull and tug at our Gentle Leader...  I think initially we have to surrender to Him over and over and over again.... but after awhile, we get used to it... we stop even trying to pull away towards worry, doubt and fear.  We stop even trying to leave His side when the going gets tough.  We just surrender and the peace floods in.