Wounds of the heart are never easy to bear, no matter who or what causes them.

Last month, we suffered the loss of our sweet border collie, Daisy, who has been our companion, protector, playmate, and fellow adventurer for the last 14 years. I know that losing a pet pales in comparison to losing a person. But there’s no denying that Daisy was intertwined around our hearts. She grew up with our kids, and her escapades often mirrored theirs. Since Amber and Jesse have been on their own for a few years now, the house seems especially empty without Daisy to fill it up.

Amber’s heartfelt words capture some of her emotions as she tried to juxtapose two events that happened on the same day: her husband’s graduation from seminary and Daisy’s death. She captures an important truth that I think we all need to remember as we celebrate life with those we love:

Andrew’s graduation from seminary is tonight, which is so exciting. At the same time, my heart is full of mourning for my beloved puppy of 14 years who just passed away. While it’s so hard to reconcile these two emotions, I know that Daisy would want me to be happy and celebrate with Andrew. If she were here, she would be chasing her tail in joy right now.

Daisy has always been a dog of celebration. Especially of the smallest things, like walks, and ice cream, and pond swimming. But maybe Daisy had it right. Let’s celebrate the small joys that we do as a family. Let’s celebrate family moments and togetherness. Let’s celebrate each other. Even the smallest things can turn into tail-chasing adventures if they’re done with the people we love. In the end, those are the best things. And I’m so thankful that I got to have many tail-chasing adventures with my sweet puppy, Daisy May.

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I think Amber and Daisy are right. The small joys that God gives us in life often turn out to be the biggest blessings of all.

Daisy joyfully greeting her kids home for Christmas!

The day Amber moved out.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

This has been a favorite scripture of mine, ever since I lost my 11-day-old daughter 22 years ago. God used it to encourage me during a difficult time.

What I found to be true is that God doesn’t leave our hearts in shambles, but that over time He heals us–if we let Him. He is able to put back together even the most splintered, shattered pieces of ourselves that the old nursery rhyme tells us are beyond repair. He binds up our wounds and is able to make us whole again.

Sometimes this is an infinitely slow process. It’s an excruciating day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute choice to believe that He is working, that life will not always be this hard, or hurt this much. As we hang in there with God in the nitty-gritty pain in our lives, our hearts begin to mend. God’s radical soul surgery, when viewed on a daily basis, may not seem to be making much of a difference.We may feel stuck, stagnant, and frustrated, blinded by the darkness in our souls.

But when looked at over the course of weeks or months, and definitely years, we can see the evidence of a skilled surgeon who is setting the broken bones and stitching together the unraveled edges of our lives. We emerge with some scars. But what we become is a person made stronger, deeper, and richer, with a depth of maturity that was not there before.

If you’re in despair of where you are now, just make the decision for one more day to get up and believe again that God is working. One more day to care for your family, go to work, clean the house. And then do it again the next day. Your heart will mend, because you’re not being operated on by the all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, but by the King of Kings. He alone can put all of us Humpty Dumptys back together again.

Pray on!

By Denslow’s_Humpty_Dumpty.djvu: W. W. Denslowderivative work: Theornamentalist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons