Puppy Love: Paw Prints of God's Love

By Lisa Lambert

Puppy Love: Paw Prints of Gods Love is a fifty-two-week devotional full of invaluable and eye-opening spiritual lessons that the Lord has shown me through my darling dogs. My hope is that through these beloved puppies you will come to know and comprehend the height, depth, length, and breadth of Gods love for you. Whether Im crawling around in the bushes, chasing puppies down the street in my pajamas, or trying to pry squirrels out the mouths of my babies, may the Lord flood your heart with giggles as He shines a light on little nuggets of truth to treasure in His Word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512731507

Lisa Lambert

Lisa Lambert had no idea that when she laid her “yes” at the altar of the Lord to whatever He may call her to do, that He would call her to write a book. After years of struggling with prompting and nudging of the Holy Spirit, Lisa finally penned her first devotional book, Puppy Love: Paw Prints of God’s Love. Lisa is surrounded by friends, family, and her adorable fur babies in the foothills of the Carolinas, where her six lovable canines fill her life with more joy, happiness, and hilarious stunts than she had ever dreamed possible.

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Copyright © 2016 Lisa Lambert.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3105-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3106-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3150-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902445

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/22/2016

Contents

Introduction

Week 1 Really?

Week 2 Sweet Fellowship

Week 3 Follying Around

Week 4 Put a Cork in It, Baby

Week 5 Puppy 101

Week 6 Broken Baby

Week 7 There He Goes Again

Week 8 Let Me Outside, PLEASE!

Week 9 Stop Chasing the Bunnies

Week 10 Yummy, Yummy

Week 11 Puppy Love

Week 12 Hide and Go Seek

Week 13 Calm Down

Week 14 Don’t Be Scared

Week 15 Just Rest

Week 16 Where Did He Go?

Week 17 Paw prints of Love

Week 18 I’ll Take Him

Week 19 No, You Didn’t

Week 20 Promised Land

Week 21 Please Get Up

Week 22 Pick Me

Week 23 Chocolate Covered Sin

Week 24 I May Be Small, BUT …

Week 25 Can You Hear Me?

Week 26 Slobbering Around

Week 27 Hidden Treasures

Week 28 Open Up

Week 29 Let’s Focus

Week 30 Stay On Track

Week 31 Shooshhhhhhhhh

Week 32 You Gonna Let Me Move?

Week 33 Quarantined

Week 34 Mud Bath

Week 35 Watch Out Below

Week 36 Mommy Time

Week 37 Chasing Bugs

Week 38 Oh, Come On!

Week 39 Whimper, Whimper, Whimper

Week 40 Round and Round We Go

Week 41 Hidden Hurts

Week 42 Trick or Treat

Week 43 Slurping Away the Sin

Week 44 Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

Week 45 Heavenly Healing

Week 46 Arghhhhhhhhh

Week 47 Which Is It?

Week 48 Thunder, Lightning, and Tucked Tails

Week 49 Family Reunion

Week 50 Weebles Wobble but They Don’t Fall Down … or Do They?

Week 51 Why Won’t You Take It?

Week 52 I’m Home

Do You Know Jesus?

Acknowledgements

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Introduction

For almost twelve years, I have felt the Lord leading me to write a devotional book. At first, I ignored the prompting and nudging of the Holy Spirit because I never saw myself as someone gifted in writing. I can appreciate a beautifully crafted work of art through the written word, but I tend to write just like I talk. I absolutely love a good run-on sentence that goes on for pages and pages, and I have pretty much made up my own version of the English language. After eleven years of struggling and wrestling around with the Lord, I finally decided to sit down and write. The problem was I didn’t have the slightest idea as to what I was supposed to write about. I am not one who journals or jots down any of my own thoughts, so to conjure up an entire book seemed almost like an impossible task. As I sat staring off into the dark, hazy sky on the back porch one brisk spring morning with my puppies, I began to pray for direction and discernment as to what on earth it was that I was supposed to pen down. I sat there for who knows how long waiting for the Lord to send me a sign, preferably a giant neon one that specifically said, Write this! As the sun began to rise and show its face, I still didn’t have a clue. I began to tell the Lord, with a bit of frustration in my tone, I can’t write anything down if You don’t tell me what I am supposed to write! Still it seemed like all of heaven went silent. It wasn’t until Tucker jumped up onto my lap and started to lick and slurp my face like it was a fresh bowl of water that it occurred to me. Immediately, the Lord began to flood my mind and heart with all the lessons He has taught me over the years through my darling dogs. It certainly wasn’t the neon sign I was hoping for, especially since the one He sent slobbered all over my face, but it was a sign that caught my attention as it had so many other times before. I am by no means a biblical scholar or an elegant poet. I am simply a girl who loves the Lord with everything in me and allows Him to speak to me any way He chooses. He just so happens to choose the very loves of my life to do so. My hope is that you will enjoy the lessons the Lord has taught me, and through them, you will grow closer to Him and see clearly His deep love for you.

Lisa Lambert

Week 1

Really?

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

—Ephesians 2:8–9 NIV

I was recently helping a friend move from the cold winters of Ohio to the lovely lakes of North Carolina. As I was helping her unpack the one day, we decided to take a break and drive around town to explore. As we were driving down the road, passing one lake after another, we came across a stretch of farm fields that seemed to go on for miles with absolutely nothing in sight but green pastures. After a while, the scenery all started to look the same until, lo and behold, what did I see? It was a sweet puppy without any food or a place to sleep! My friend clearly didn’t understand my need to save every puppy on the planet, because she refused to stop the car. I’ve always been told I’m a bit determined, headstrong, and stubborn, and I suppose they would be right about that, because I jumped out of the car while it was still moving. She wasn’t going very fast, but it was fast enough to hurt a shoe or two. As I got to my feet, I leaned down with arms opened wide, trying to persuade the little puppy to come my way. As my arms were stretched out and with eagerness in my voice, I said, Come here, baby! I couldn’t believe my eyes at what happened next. He didn’t shudder or stop for a moment. That little guy ran straight to me and leaped into my arms. I scooped him up, scurried my way back to the car, set him on my lap, and buckled us in—we were ready to go! But the driver … not so much. She glared in my direction in pure shock that I would not only jump out of a moving car but that I would jump back in with a filthy dog. When we got back to her house, she decided she would keep the sweet pooch and take him to the vet to see if anyone would claim him. But she wouldn’t accept the fact that I had already claimed him and had plans to bring him home. So the next day she went to the vet to see if by some chance the puppy contained a chip that could decipher where he belonged. To her dismay, there was no chip. The veterinarian then proceeded to tell her the puppy was also indeed part fox! Needless to say, she was struggling with the thought of putting him back in her car—let alone taking him back to her house. Most people would shudder in fear like she did at the thought of having a fox in their home, but not me. By the time I found out his family history, it didn’t matter to me. I already had his name picked out along with a cozy little bed that was ready to engulf him the moment I got him home. I didn’t shudder at the thought of what he could or couldn’t do simply because he was a fox. I didn’t care what his family history was like or the issues that might come. All that mattered to me was that he was a lost and lonely puppy—but now he has a home where he is loved and cherished despite his background.

As crazy as it may have been