Rupert

She was 16 but that didn’t mean she could hold it in. She sat by the fireplace, cuddling the small dark dog and the tears welled up in her eyes, uncontrolled. She looked up at her dad and mom who stood nearby, helpless. “But we have to do something” she sobbed, letting tears drop onto the blanketed animal.

Rupert was obviously hurt. Maybe it was something deep inside—they couldn’t see any outward damage. He was a middle-aged dog, at least in dog years, a crazy mix of miniature dachshund and miniature pinscher, mottled colors in a smooth, short coat of fur. He had two dispositions, either sweet (when he wanted to share a lap or a bed), or ferocious with raised back fur (when a neighborhood cat was seen outside). The girl loved him unconditionally. He responded the same way.

Some time in the previous few hours Rupert had injured himself. Like the girl’s middle-aged father, a middle-aged dog can’t just burst around the house with adolescent agility. Busting a sudden dance move could cause sore muscles for days. Rupert must have jumped from a high chair one time too many. Maybe nobody told him to do warm-up exercises before dashing from window to window to look for the sneaky cat.

Like all dachshunds, Rupert was a long, tubular dog, and long tubular dogs are prone to spine injuries. Something was wrong with his back. Rather than prancing and dancing around his owner’s feet, he stood stiffly, puffing out his belly to brace against the pain. He whimpered and called out a quiet yelp when she lifted him to her lap. The warmth of the fireplace made no difference.

“We can’t just sit here—we have to do something.” She repeated.

The little dog had been sired among the broken-down outbuildings of a struggling farmstead along the border of Iowa and Minnesota. It was a muddy, overgrown place. When the upper middle class buyers had visited, the picture of poverty was overwhelming. A dirty comforter was produced, crawling with a pile of puppies. Various farm cats and dogs wandered the yard. A miniature horse was tied up nearby. The buyers looked at the chosen puppy, imagining the long list of intestinal parasites to be conquered. The girl’s mom and dad had even wondered a bit about how many animal species might be represented in the genes of this dog—that miniature horse had a peculiar look in its eye.

The years had passed and now Rupert was grown and injured. Two days of vet appointments and scans set the family back a few hundred dollars, and only confirmed the diagnosis—a ruptured disc in the lower spine was putting pressure on the spinal nerves. Within a day Rupert was dragging his hind quarters rather than using his legs. He was a pitiful pile of dog, nothing like the spritely animal they knew. The future didn’t look good. A few dachshunds recover with long bed rest. Most don’t. Pain medicine would help little.

Distraught, her mom picked Rupert up from the local vet. She sat alone in the car with the broken dog and called the girl’s dad at work. The conversation was short. Now mom, like daughter, found herself unable to control her emotions. The caller lost all composure, crying into the phone, letting the tears roll down her cheeks, oblivious to others in the parking lot or the effects on makeup.

Her mom and dad knew about the other option for a small active dog that couldn’t even drag itself into the yard for its morning business. When euthanasia was mentioned in dinner discussion, the look on the girl’s face cut to the heart.

Rupert was a member of the family.

A consult at the large university veterinary center suggested one other option, but it seemed extravagantly expensive. Spinal surgery. She and her mother drove 90 miles for the consultation. She cradled the crying dog as best she could. Her college-aged sister joined them for the vet visit. The price tag had four figures. The expensive operation couldn’t ensure recovery.

There was another phone call. The three women sat with the small dog. They wanted to be extravagant. Seeing him raise his nose to new scents on the air outside the veterinary hospital seemed to convince them. The girl’s father took the call from his office, far from them, listening to the tones as the phone was passed from one woman to another. He imagined the three of them sitting in the grass with the helpless animal. He ran the expensive scenario through his mind.

Something occurred to him as he listened. It was both a sensation and an impression, and it grew more powerful in an instant. A helpless, broken animal lay suffering far away. The animal had no intrinsic value—the repair expense could not be rationally justified. Why sacrifice this kind of money for an operation with no assurance of success? What kind of life lesson would the two young women of the family take away from such a crazy and irresponsible investment?

The sensation and the impression grew. The contemplated sacrifice was a tiny picture of something unfathomably greater.

Grace.

Grace is the central concept of Christianity. Grace is the ultimate synonym for Jesus Christ himself. Grace is extravagant, sacrificial love by the perfection of deity bestowed upon objects with no value. Grace is he most worthy of worship reducing himself to the tortured sacrifice extravagantly rescuing his own enemies. Grace is the decision to love irrationally, imitating that ancient, irrational love that was nailed to a cross.

The operation was an expensive success.

The little dog soon could walk again. It wasn’t long before his prancing dance came back to him, with some uncontrolled sway in the hind quarters. The family joked about the expense of the procedure. They saw the traces of clumsiness and smiled together—knowingly.

Abstract concepts come alive when personified. The personification of grace lies at the heart of the story of Jesus Christ. If dogs will someday scamper around heaven, I am sure that one little mottled dachshund with a slightly awkward gait will often be seen waiting his turn to feel the embrace of his Master.