This is the eleventh and final entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional. This reflection for Easter Sunday comes to us from the Rev. Dallas (Dee) Brauninger. She is a former UCCDM Secretary and Board Member her bio can be found on the Former Board of Directors page. Rev. Dallas (Dee) Brauninger also received the 2013 UCCDM Award.

Easter

Faith reflected in a note to the man in an Iowa prison who socialized Leader Dog Angel for a year:

You did a fine job of socializing Leader Dog Angel.  She and her trainer arrived at my house on Sunday, January 12. I will give it my all to be a good person for her to guide. Angel is my fourth dog guide since 1986. She returns my freedom to get around and have a life filled with doing meaningful things for others.

Thanks for teaching her how to return a thrown ball without a tease. I will see that she balances her lifework of patiently guiding a 70-year-old woman with the joy of play and being a “dog” dog when she is off duty.

I am proud of Angel’s first career of loving and trusting you.  She knows about trust. She gives freely of her love. You must have a wonderful soul to have encouraged these tender qualities. You gave her a solid start in her profession as dog guide — good habits and good behavior. I respect and thank you for the kind, gentle way in which you taught her.

You surely miss her. I wish well for you. I pray that you will continue to choose life-giving ways. I hope that whenever life is tough you can remember this dog who told you clearly that she accepts and trusts you to give her what she needed, no matter what your past chapters. Sometimes we need an angel to remind us to hope. If you were the one who named her, you saw her soul.

Though strangers, you and I share the gift of knowing Angel. She takes the loneliness out of my blindness. Perhaps she also lessened the loneliness of this Lenten time of your incarceration by helping you also to see yourself as a person who can respect and trust yourself. Nothing can separate you from what she gave to you.

I know the plans I have for you, to give you a future with hope. Jeremiah 29