Why God Made Dogs
God knew the world would be difficult sometimes.
He knew that there would be days in our lives when our hearts would ache in ways we couldn’t explain — days when grief would feel too heavy for words, days when loneliness would find us, days when we would need the kind of love that didn’t ask for anything in return, the kind of love that felt rooted, that felt gentle all over, that felt pure.
And so, God made dogs.
He made dogs to sit beside us in silence and still somehow soften the edges of our pain. He made dogs to be there without needing explanation, to comfort without needing language. God made dogs to greet us in ways that remind us of joy, to remind us that we can be missed even on the most ordinary of days. He made dogs to love us without condition. To love us without caution. To love us without keeping score. He made dogs to be soft places to land — constant, and loyal, and present anchors in our lives.
God made dogs to remind us of the kind of love that stays. They don’t recoil at our sadness. They don’t rush our healing. They sense our fear before it is spoken, they sense our anxiety before it is visible, they sense our heartbreak before we have said a word. And through it all, they stay, they care for us, as if to say — “I will always be here.” As if to say — “You don’t have to go through this alone.”
God made dogs to bring us back to the simple things in this life, to open our eyes to them. A patch of golden sunlight on the floor. A walk without a destination. The joy of being seen, just as we are. He made them playful so we would remember wonder. He made them gentle so we would remember kindness. He made them forgiving so we would remember grace.
And maybe most of all, God made dogs to be a mirror of the way he loves us — fully, and patiently, and without needing us to earn it. Because sometimes, when we forget what goodness feels like, what genuine love feels like, a dog comes along and leads us back to it. A dog comes along and reminds us of that tenderness.
That is why God made dogs. To remind us that we are still safe. To remind us that we are still loved. To remind us that we are never as alone as we think.
Rebecca Simon, a best-selling author of Christian writer, is the author of Let Go, Trust God: Become Who You Were Meant To Be.
