Can God use dogs for the Kingdom? Paws-itively!

Author Jennifer Marshall Bleakley explains how our fury friends can bring us closer to God. 

“I didn’t think anyone could love me,” Henry confessed, his voice thick with emotion. “Not after what I’d done—who I’d become. I was just lying in that hospital bed waiting to die, when—” the middle-aged man cleared his throat—“when a therapy dog named Gracie walked into my room. The white Lab looked straight up at me with her big brown eyes. Her tail wagged like she was excited to see me, and . . . it was like something shifted inside me.” He rubbed his forearm across his flushed face. “It might sound silly, but it felt like Gracie had come to tell me that she loved me—and that God loved me too. I will never forget that day.”

Henry was one of the dozens of people I interviewed while working with Larry Randolph on a book about the therapy dog ministry he felt called by God to start more than sixteen years ago. I knew I would hear touching stories about the comfort and joy people experienced from therapy dogs. And I did. But I also heard stories of people being forever changed by the love of God—a love they describe as entering their lives on paws and with a wagging tail.