Gentle Giants

© 2013 Mit Maras

Any lover of Great Dane dogs will tell you their breed nickname of gentle giants is an accurate description. All you have to do is Google information for the dogs, and you will quickly read of their gentle and loving nature despite size. Pictures of the enormous dogs standing protective beside toddlers, half their size, are favorites of mine.

A somewhat secret wish of my husband was always to own one of these magnificent animals. I have gladly admired them from afar…living in someone else’s home. Not mine. Not until now.

Recently, my husband lead a fellow worker to Christ. Somewhere along that man’s search for God, the topic of Great Danes arose. He owned a pair of Great Danes that had just given birth to a dozen puppies. My husband shared with him his lifelong wish of owning one of the magnificent creatures, and that is where this new chapter of our lives began.

Oil field men are a special breed of men themselves. My husband’s biceps and shoulders are larger than some women’s thighs. He doesn’t tower others by any means, but his nickname Moose lends some insight into his size. The other guy, my Moose-of-a-husband, calls…massive! The joy it brings me to picture two rough and tough oil men sitting around talking about Jesus and puppies is simply immeasurable! They, themselves are gentle giants!

All this leading to my current journey….the backseat of a minivan. One very excited six year old sitting beside me, separated by a sleeping 9 week old Great Dane…on my favorite blanket. The two day trip that split up a 19 hour drive is one most normal people would have never made. And that was just to get there. Thank goodness we are not normal. With our trusty GPS guiding our way, back roads of the beautiful New Mexico frontier have become our playground. A new blanket of snow, highlighting an already perfect sculpture of God’s beauty poured out onto Earth, makes a backdrop of heavenly inspiration.

One of the highlights of my journey came at 5:30 this morning, when two gentle giants bonded on the floor of a hotel room. My son, exhausted from all of the excitement, slept through it all. I dozed in and out for about three hours. The times I was awake, I saw one of the gentlest giants of a man lost in pure bonding and love with a baby of a gentle giant breed. As they played in the predawn hours, a soft glow from the bathroom illuminated their playful silhouettes. There was something magical witnessing the eternal bonds of these two gentle giants.

There were no burdens of the world weighing heavy on his mind or his chest. There were no whines and cries from a puppy missing her canine family. There was a bonding of two spirits that’s as pure as the crisp white snow blanketing the ground around us. The simple question their playful banter at 5:30 in the morning left me with was….who….saved who?

© 2013 Mit Maras