Why We Rescue

I have always admired those who rescue.  I have three dogs, two of which are from shelters and one of which was a stray. It is such a gratifying experience to rescue an animal.  You are saving these animals from living in the shelters and worse: becoming another statistic. The Humane Society of the United States says that 6 to 8 million animals enter shelters every year, and 3 to 4 million of those are euthanized. By rescuing an animal from a shelter rather than adopting them from a pet store or a breeder, you are changing this statistic and saving a life.

Okay, now that I'm done with the PSA, I want to tell you about something.

So there's this guy named Theron Humphrey. He seems like a pretty cool dude. I'm not sure how I originally heard of him, but somehow I found him on Instagram and was blown away. Every picture he posts is beautiful (he's from Washington so that is expected), but the photos I love most are of his dog.

Her name is Maddie, a coonhound rescue, and she is in almost every one of his pictures. He actually published a book about her (you can find it here) called "Maddie on Things", where he poses her on top of all different sorts of objects for fun.  There is also a blog of the pictures he takes here.

Apart from his adventures with Maddie, Humphrey has been working on a project. It's called "Why We Rescue", and it is essentially a documentary of people from all 50 states who have rescued animals.   There are beautiful pictures of the pets, the owners, and their homes.  Along with this Humphrey recorded the people telling their stories so as you scroll through the photos you can hear them speaking to you. He made this documentary so that others can see the beauty that comes from adopting, and how these everyday stories display just how transformative pets are.

I love this project.  It really communicates in a beautiful way how such a small act of adopting can change lives.  I know this to be true, and now other people can see how great it is through "Why We Rescue".

If you want to check out his project, click here!

Have any of you guys ever adopted pets? If so, tell me your story!

Comparison

I have always struggled quite a bit with comparison.  I think it is one of those overlooked problems, simply because other things seem to be a lot worse.  While there may be more detrimental problems, comparing yourself to others can be significantly hurtful to yourself and to the God that created you.

God has been trying to open my eyes to my struggle with comparison.  There have been quite a few things popping up lately that are pointing to this, and I have started thinking about it a lot. It is a problem that many teenage girls struggle with, myself included, mainly because we are unhappy with parts of who we are.

While we may overlook the fact that we compare ourselves to others daily, it is actually a big problem. Doing so says a lot about who we are and the God we put our faith in. It says that we are unsatisfied with who we were created to be and therefore want more than what we have: we want to be prettier, nicer, more patient, have more money, more opportunities, more adventures. It says that we are unhappy with how God created us to be.

The reality is that God created you EXACTLY the way he wanted.  He is a perfect God, so how could he make a mistake? Yes, he may have given you a bigger nose than you'd hoped for, or a more stubborn personality then most, but he didn't do any of this by accident.

Think about it: if he created us the way we wanted, each of us would probably look like a beautiful model. While you may initially think that would be awesome, where is the fun in it? We wouldn't have any of the unique qualities, gifts, or talents God has blessed us with.  We would all be carbon copies of each other, created from the same overused mold.

I think we need to view ourselves less as what we see in the mirror and more how God sees us.  We are his masterpiece: he created us in his image, and all of the things we see as imperfections he sees as perfect.  We are the beautiful art of a creative God who built us each exactly the way we are meant to be.

Just remember: you are beautiful and perfect in his eyes, and that's all that matters!


"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." -Ephesians 2:10





photo credit: seyed mostafa zamani via photopin cc