El Roi

Written
by our friend, Dianne Pruim

owl.raoset.com.

You've heard it before -
El Roi was here.  Or was that
Kilroy was here?  I'm not sure. I
know I've heard of El Roi before...then my friend showed up a few weeks ago with
it tattooed on her arm.

"What does it
mean?" I said.

Through a crowd of people,
she answered,  "It means, God
who sees...you know...Haggar, cried out to Him (El Roi) in her grief."

Oh...okay.

My friends returned home,
and within weeks, their wonderfully cute and quirky, amazingly loving,
furry-child passed away.  This one
of a kind Shih Tzu named Bruno did so much more that just fill a void in this childless
couples' life...he became one of the family.  And for 6 1/2 years, life was good.  Then he was gone.The next day, in the midst of their
overwhelming grief, a friend of theirs showed up with another Shih Tzu puppy.  The agreement was to try him out and if
it was too hard, they could give him back.  Ugh!  What a
hard place to be in...what a wonderful, yet difficult gift! 

"What is his
name?" I asked. 

"He doesn't have one
because we aren't going to keep him," my friend replied.  She went on to say that he was
definitely cute, cuddly and all those other things one might expect from a
puppy, but he wasn't Bruno.  And
they wanted Bruno back.

Two days passed and they
were 99.9% sure they weren't going to keep him.  I offered to nanny him until they were ready to keep him,
secretly wishing someone would give me a dog, but there was no response.  Perhaps they thought I was joking.

On the third day, I got a
message that, for the time being, they were keeping the puppy.  Everyone thought they should and that
they would at some point be sorry if they didn't.  But she made it clear that he would never be Bruno, never
get to play with Bruno's toys, never get to sleep with them, never have the run
of the house, and especially never get the run of their hearts.  Okay, if you say so.  Now...have you named him yet?

 "We're calling him
Roi"  she said.

 "Roy?  Are you serious?  You're calling the puppy Roy?"

 "Not Roy, Roi, as in
El Roi."

 "Oh, that Roi."

Thinking back to the
tattoo, I decided it was time to look up what that really means.  So I googled it and according to the
Holman Bible Dictionary, El-Roi 
is a Hebrew word meaning "God who Sees me" or "God of Vision" (Genesis 16:13). God sees the needs of His people and
responds.  Hmmmm...I wonder how
that might apply in this situation? 
Could it be that simple, that obvious?  Time will tell. I know I'm starting to love Roi already.  I got to see his cute little furry self
on the web cam tonight.  But more
than that, his name carries a promise...that God has seen the need of some of
his people and is already responding.

BRUNO (Dec 15, 02 - Aug 31, 09)     Roi....Bruno's little "brother from another mother & father". 

Thank you all for your prayers and words of encouragement. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family!

...a special thanks to our friend who gifted us with Roi.