Dog the bounty hunter
How Dog the bounty hunter taught me of God’s love!
(I feel like I should put a disclaimer on this that I experienced this and wrote it way back in October of 2019, before COVID 19 hit and everything, but never got around to sharing it until now.)
It was an ordinary day in the life of Kaley. It was that time again, when I needed to pick up my refills of my many prescriptions at the pharmacy. You see, I have an auto immune disease that requires me to be on a crazy number of prescriptions to help keep me alive and functioning as a normal human being. I love this handy little app that Walgreens has where you just take a picture of your prescription, and it will send the request over for you and it will be ready shortly. I had gotten an alert that all my prescriptions were ready, and since I live a little ways away, I try to get them all at the same time when I go in to save myself a trip. I decided with it being flu season it is probably a good time to just get my flu shot while I’m there as well. So, a little secret about me…. I HATE needles and shots. I’m the person who passes out when I see one and get one. I know, it’s been a wonderful journey with all my health issues because with my disease I get an infusion through an IV, every two months. For the rest of my life. Again, it’s another lifesaving medicine, so I am grateful for it. But needless to say, it’s been a work in progress to overcome my fear of needles and being poked and prodded over the years. So I’m psyching myself up that this flu shot is going to be good and it’s not going to be a problem and I’m not going to pass out at Walgreens. I was feeling good. I was feeling ready and set.
So I hop in the car to drive over. Once I get there, I make my way to the back corner where the pharmacy is, I know all this a little too well. It’s practically my second home. I am walking, head down on a mission to the counter. I tell the pharmacist what I’m there for and they turn around to go grab my bag of pills. Yes, it’s a bag. Since it’s surprisingly quiet at the pharmacy I turned around briefly, you know just to check my surroundings. And there he was... Dog… The Bounty Hunter. You know the butt kicker dude from the television show where he catches criminals on the run and everything. The guy who you don’t EVER wanna mess with or be on the wrong side of. Yah, him. Standing right next to me, all casually. He was just at his pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions like any other person would. My first reaction was oh my gosh, if he’s here, then shouldn’t I be concerned? I mean he goes where the criminal and bad guys are and catches them, right? Maybe I should be concerned that he’s here because something bad is about to happen. Then I can’t help but notice the gun on his hip, which I was a bit torn about, because this one part of me is like, I know I couldn’t be with a more safe person at this moment if something were to go wrong, but what if something is about to go sideways, I want to know that too and kind of have a heads up, you know.
Here I was having this frantic conversation in my head when all of a sudden, I felt this calm come over me that I can only relate to the Holy Spirit and I felt my heart and my eyes and my mind soften. It was like the filter or fog of life had been taken off and I could see deeper. I saw this man who was just like me, an ordinary person who was running errands and I just happened to bump into him. He was kind to the employees and kept to himself. As it was just the two of us standing there at the counter waiting, I could feel his great sadness. It was like a cloud over him. Then I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me, “He’s just a man who is grieving and doing his best to still live his life as he accepts his new normal.” It shook me.
Here I was analyzing this guy who I only knew from the portrayal from TV. I had labeled him by what I saw on TV and what he showed us. But then the still small voice came back again and reminded me of that news article we all saw not too long back where his wife, Beth, passed away from cancer. Here he is, this tough guy who hunts down the bad guys and helps keep us all safe and sound and he’s really just like all of us. He’s not immune to illness or loss or grief. He’s a human being just like all of us. And all of those things are not discriminatory of who they attack. Illness, loss and grief don’t care how old you are, where you live, what your job title is, what color of skin you have or what your beliefs are. They hit everyone the same. It was this reality that hit me, of how often do we glorify these worldly people who we see as big tough guys, who are the heroes in the stories, or the movies and we assume they are different than us. We assume because of their money or their status or their career or whatever it is that they must be better than us and have it different than us. It’s just not true. We are all humans, and we all have or will experience many difficulties in our lives. It doesn’t matter what we look like or how much money we have or where we live, it can happen to any one of us.
The difference is how we treat people when it does. How about we start taking those labels off other people that we’ve labeled more important, better looking, or more successful and start seeing everyone as a person, just like us. What would we want if we were going through the same thing? How would we want people to act or treat us? I realized this about the time that the pharmacy was beginning to get crowded. There are people coming from all angles and you can’t miss the fact that Dog is there. Everyone is talking and whispering and looking at him all deciding what to do. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that I wanted to talk to him, but I realized the reason why, was for me. It was for my own benefit. To be able to tell everyone that I talked to him. But the Holy Spirit stopped me again and softened my heart and I asked what would Dog want me to do? You could tell by how he was standing he was in no mood to be bothered by everyone’s attention. It looked like he was trying to make himself invisible to everyone around him. Sadly, it wasn’t working and person after person came up to talk to him. They were nice of course, but you could see him not wanting the attention.
I prayed right then and there for him to receive the love and healing from God that I know he’s deeply desiring, even if he knows it or not. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your best friend/your partner in your wife! I honestly can’t imagine. Guys guess what? I’m not here to judge, I’m here to love, and so are you. And as I watched everyone flock to him like a magnet all I wanted to do was scoop him up in a big hug and carry him to a quiet place where he wasn’t being disturbed. I wanted to hold his hands and look into his face and tell him how deeply loved he really is. And that God’s heart breaks for him as he grieves. And remind him that God is near the broken hearted and that He grieves when we grieve and that He collects each and every precious tear that rolls down our cheeks. I couldn’t help but want to remind this hurting man during this time, that God is never far away and that He desperately wants to hold him and love him as well!
I also saw this picture or vision or whatever you may call it and I only include this because I didn’t have the nerve to tell him in person, but just for the off chance that he may read this somehow, sometime by some way that God puts this in front of him when he needs it most. In this vision I saw a red rose, it was beautifully perfect and smelled divine. It was in someone’s hand, and they were reaching it out towards me. It started kind of far away from me, but as they walked closer you could make the perfect details of the rose out. The thorns on the bright green stem and the color red that almost glistened, somehow. I’m not quite sure what it means, but I’ve learned it doesn’t always have to make sense to me. I hope and pray that it gets in the hands of who it needs to so that God can use it to make sense to them!
This was just another ordinary day in the life of Kaley and I’m sure for Dog as well. But God used it to soften my heart and my mind, and my soul and it has changed not only how I view myself, but how I view every single daughter or son of God’s! We are all people, and we all want that deep sense of love and acceptance and I hope and pray that this helps point people back to God and his unending love and mercy for every single person he has created!
With love,
Kaley