She showed up at our house the day before Christmas Eve. Tim and I brought the little bitty stray puppy inside. Not having any dog food, we warmed up a can of chicken noodle soup. Bless her little hungry heart; she started whining when she smelled it cooking. She ate until her sides pooched. That did it. We kept Pobby and our lives were never the same.

On warm sunny days, I would open the door in our bedroom and let Pobby out in the fenced in backyard to bark at the “whats.” When she first started barking at Papaw’s cows, we would ask, “What? What are you barking at?” Pobby thought we were calling the cows “whats.” We even started calling cows “whats” too. I still do every once in a great while.

One nice day I had opened the doors to let Pobby run outside. As I walked through the bedroom, I noticed something didn’t look right. I stood and looked around the room. When my gaze landed on my dresser, my heart skipped a beat.

I kept my Bible on the dresser. It wasn’t just any Bible. It was the Bible my church presented to me when I graduated from high school. My name was engraved on the front cover in gold. It was gone and Pobby wasn’t barking at the “whats” next to the fence.

I leapt out of the doorway. “Pobby!!

And there she was, lying on the ground with my Bible between her paws. Dangling from her snout was a piece of the brown leather binding.

“No! Pobby No!” I ran towards her.

Pobby jumped up and ran off. I picked up my wet Bible. The corner where my name was engraved was gone. Or should I say it was now in her tummy. A few of the pages had the ends gnawed off. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

Holding my gnawed and dripping wet Bible out, I said, “Pobby, this is God’s word. You can’t eat it!”

From across the yard, she looked at me and licked her lips. I didn’t have the heart to scold her. She was a dog doing what dogs do: gnaw and chew. If it was anybody’s fault, it was mine. I had gotten too lax with watching Pobby. She hadn’t chewed anything in a long time. Guess she couldn’t resist grabbing my Bible as a snack and I wasn’t there to stop her.

I took my Bible back in and proceeded to wipe off the dirt and doggie slobbers. That’s when it dawned on me that God used that little dog to get my attention. I hated to admit it, but that Bible had become more of a decoration than it was a form of dedication. That needed to change. And it did.

I began to see my gnawed Bible as a reminder of myself: rough around the edges, but still loved by the Lord. So, I kept it on the dresser.

When we’d have friends over, they would notice it. “What happened to your Bible?”

“Hey, the Bible says to eat God’s word,” I replied as I wiped my mouth with my hand.

“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of Hosts.” Jeremiah 15:16 (KJV)