3:30 a.m.

I walk into the hallway and immediately notice the quiet. But this morning, the quiet sounds nice, not empty. Minnie is asleep in my chair, something she would never do with the dogs here. Paulie is out here too, following along with me. They are free too. No sound of metal tags clinking on a callar to send them running under the bed. And I peer out the back, sliding door, noticing that the window is still clean a week later - no nose prints or foot prints to muddy it. Less cleaning for me to do. And I can go back to bed anytime I want to - no waiting for the dogs to decide to go back into their kennels. Their is immense freedom for all of us in this house. Even David, who is asleep, benefits from this situation - no dogs jumping up on the bed and waking him up. Not that it was the most annoying thing in the world, but it wasn't pleasant to be woken from a wonderful night's sleep by a spastic dog jumping all over and licking you to death. It is peaceful and quiet. It is freeing.

When my heart is troubled and I am worrying, I will pray that my mind and heart would be comforted with a peace that surpasses understanding. I will replace thoughts of worry with thoughts of scripture. I will bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. I will remember Matthew 11:28-30:

Matthew 11:

28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

I will find rest for my soul. The anxiety and stress that I would normally be feeling has been replaced with a feeling of peace and contentment. I am still sad and will miss them always, but I can go on with my life without them in it. I have Jesus, who never leaves me.

The ironic thing is that the dogs are probably sleeping through the night more than I am at this point! :-) They are probably tired by bedtime from being out of their kennels all day. Especially Moped, who gets around.

I've emailed Kris three times and left her one phone message. I don't regret doing that because I needed to cope with my emotions some way. I just don't want her to think that I'm going to continue to contact her with my emotional outbursts when missing the dogs. They are not my dogs anymore. They belong to God and he will find good homes for them. And he told me that it may not look good at first, but that He is in charge and all things will work together for those who love God. He didn't say they would specifically work out for me, but that they would work TOGETHER for those who love Him. There is a plan. Even though we have free will and can make choices, there still is a master plan in place.

I had a dream about the dogs that I just remembered. Their profiles were added to the GSP Rescue sight and I was happy about that. It's the little things in life that make the most difference.

I will take a deep breath and remember what my goal and intent was when I re-homed the dogs: to get them more appropriate homes so they can be happier and more content. That's still my goal and that is still my intent.

It is okay to miss them. They were a huge part of my life, mostly they were my life, this past year and a half. Skooter and I are bonded together. I don't want that to go away. It is precious and I want it to stay with me for all time. Wonderful relationships never really end even though there may be some distance. People move on and sometimes dogs have to move on too. There's nothing wrong with feeling sad about that.

I feel at peace. My insides aren't rumbling around, I'm not feeling tremendous stress and I'm able to relax. It's been a long time since I felt this kind of freedom. It feels good.