Seeing In The Dark

Our friendship has always felt a little like hunting dogs in the woods—sniffing, circling, searching. We never follow a straight path. We meander, catch the scent of something real, and chase it until it disappears into mystery.

It reminds me of when I was a boy, running hounds through the bottoms after dark. I must have been fourteen, maybe a little older. I had a redbone coonhound named Rock. Sixty-five pounds of red muscle and heart, with a white chest and eyes that seemed to know more than a dog should. His name fit him—steady, unmoving, solid as stone.

I’d spent that summer training Rock to be a coonhound, he was learning well. He had a young companion, a bluetick pup named Joe—smaller, wiry, still learning the trade. I’d worked them together until Rock began to lead the hunts, trailing and treeing with that long, rolling bawl that echoed across the fields.

Most nights, I’d turn them loose at dusk. Their cries would fade into the woods while I sat on the porch, listening for the rhythm of the chase—the distant baying that told me they were running strong. By morning, they’d always be back, tongues lolling, eyes bright with the satisfaction of the hunt.

But one night, only Joe came home.

Behind our house stretched a band of timber running all the way to Fuller Road. I remember hearing Rock treeing in that direction. The sound carried through the night, low and rhythmic.

At dawn, Joe trotted back, muddy and tired. No one could ever catch Joe but me. But Rock—Rock never came home.

I searched the woods for days. I called neighbors, rode down the backroads just hoping to see him. Nothing. The only conclusion that ever made sense was the hardest one: someone heard him treeing and stole him. They walked in and took him off the tree.

It’s hard to describe how much that loss hurt. To a fourteen-year-old boy, Rock wasn’t just a dog. He was my companionandbest friend, my pride, the one living thing that seemed to understand me without words. I’d taught him to stand like a statue while I hosed him down after a muddy run—steady, eyes closed, trusting me completely. He was gentle, loyal, unflinching.

And then, he was gone.

I cried until I couldn’t anymore. My heart felt hollowed out. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I know now what I was feeling: grief, pure and unfiltered—the kind that comes from love and loss.

Years later, I’d still remember Rock. Whenever life felt uncertain, or when I talked about the way our conversations wander and circle, I’d think of him—how he taught me to listen to the night, to trust what I couldn’t see, to follow the unseen trail.

Sometimes I think God teaches us through loss in the same way He does through love—quietly, without explanation, asking only that we listen. Rock’s absence left a space in me that made room for wonder, for faith, for learning to trust what is unseen but still real.

Faith, after all, isn’t about control. It’s about listening in the dark and believing the voice that calls you home