Psalm 127 says that children are a heritage from the Lord and
that children are like arrows in your quiver that you can use to fight the
enemy. I don't have children in my quiver. I have cats. In the past, I've
written plenty about things that God showed me through my cats. I've learned
some new stuff recently that I'd like to share with you. Because, well, God IS
love, and I think sometimes He's kinda like a lovesick teenager. Yes, He's
mature, and yes, He's the wisest Being in the entire universe. Yes, He plans
for the future, and Jesus calls us His bride, and He takes good care of us. But
I think sometimes He likes to scribble loveletters and stuff them into our
lockers between classes, and sometimes He likes to chase us down after school
and ask us if He can carry our books for us or walk us home. And, like I heard
a preacher say once, sometimes He longs for us to drop to our knees in the
middle of the hallway between classes and croon out a lovesong to Him while
everyone is watching. Because He's our First Love.
So, here are a few things I've experienced firsthand. I'm
going to talk about animals, which have unabashed bodily functions, so please
feel free to skip this post if reading about poop, etc., grosses you out.
1) If we come to
God with a mess that only He can clean up, He delights to clean it up for us. My latest adventures with cat
hairballs have been somewhat violent. While I was trying to fall asleep last
Saturday night, my little cat (who likes to snuggle next to me while I fall
asleep) puked up a rather large hairball that required me to change my sheets
and remove my mattress cover. It was dark, and I was wearing my earplugs, but I
heard her puking, so I was able to turn the light on, see the mess, and clean
it up. (And move her before she puked on my pillow.) So, it was a disgusting
way to end the evening, but I was glad the puking happened while I was still
conscious, and I was glad I could clean it up as soon as it happened. Also, I
heard a horror story once about somebody whose cat died of a massive hairball,
so anytime I see MY babies hawk up a hairball, I'm glad that they're getting it
out and not letting it keep growing inside them or become fatal.
Not all hairballs escape a cat's body through the mouth. Some
of them come out the other end. Yesterday morning, my large cat (who likes to
jump on my bed while I'm waking up) left a piece of poop on my sheets that was
big enough for me to see without my glasses. Horrified and extremely grossed
out, I noticed that he had a large piece of poop that was still hanging out of
his butt. After he had jumped back down to the floor, I grabbed his butt and
some Kleenex and pulled out the rest of his poop. He yelped in pain, but I
discovered that he had pooped a hairball that had gotten stuck. The cleanup
effort afterwards was somewhat massive, and it involved me disposing of my sheets
and using quite a bit of air freshener. But he was fine afterwards, and he
snuggled on my lap at lunchtime.
As a human being, I was naturally grossed out. I was already
exhausted from the hairball cleanup from the night before, and I was concerned
about the cleanliness of my mattress. But I'm not God. I'm not omniscient, and
I'm not capable of healing every wound or disease that comes my way. But God
is. He knows what's coming, and He's incapable of being corrupted, so He's not
grossed out by hairballs or half-pooped hairballs. If I have an emotional wound
that's so severe, and the emotional hairball is so huge that it gets stuck in
my emotional butt on the way out, God delights to pick me up, reach inside, and
remove my hairball forever. He doesn't get tired, so He won't complain about
losing sleep or needing to clean up after I make a mess. He loves me, and He
wants me to be healthy. Neither of my cats can clean up their own messes. They
need me to do that for them. It's part of my job as a cat owner. And I delight
immensely to do that job, no matter how gross it can be. I love my babies, and
I want them to be healthy and stay with me for as long as possible.
I think I read somewhere that cats molt in March and September,
so if that is true, then I think my babies are right on schedule.
2) If we are slow
movers, God delights in our slowness. This next story technically doesn't involve one of MY pets,
but it does involve an animal. I'm not an outdoorsy person whatsoever, but
recently while I was outside for a few minutes, I saw a snail lumbering on the
sidewalk. I don't get to see snails very often, so I was glad no one else was
around to see a grown woman staring at a snail on the sidewalk. Dang, that
creature was moving slow. Probably because it was carrying its house on its
back. But it was so adorable. I remembered my favorite movie The NeverEnding Story, and I realized
how easy it is to make fun of snails. "It really is a racing snail!"
I spent most of my life in environments where everything was
urgent or rushed. I became mentally ill years ago, partly because my emotional
healing was rushed. But God isn't always in a hurry. The God of the universe
who made the entire world in 6 days, the most efficient Being in the universe,
made creatures such as the snail. I still don't know what kind of purpose
snails serve (maybe something gardening related?), but they make great fiction
characters, and they are a major delight to stare at on a sidewalk.
If I take forever to learn a truth or get healed up, I don't
think God is going to rush me or give up on me and slap me away. I think maybe
He's going to stare at me with a tremendous amount of delight as I lumber along
with my house on my back and make sure the sidewalk is clear for my slow-moving
journey.
3) If we have a
crisis, the best place for it to happen is when we're snuggling close to God. About a week after I got my
wisdom teeth removed, I woke up in the middle of the night, left the room for a
moment, and went back to bed. It was summertime, so my ceiling fan was on
directly above me. After I snuggled back onto my pillow, my little cat climbed
on top of me and snuggled. Suddenly, I heard a loud pop (even through my
earplugs), and I saw a flash of light in my ceiling fan (even without my
glasses), and I smelled something burning. My cat freaked out and jumped down,
of course. I scrambled to get another light on, and I gradually realized that
my ceiling fan had just busted. My apartment complex eventually repaired my ceiling
fan, but the circumstances in which it exploded amaze me.
I'm not an electrician, but I think maybe it could have
caused a fire the way it just popped like that in the middle of the night. I
don't usually wake up in the middle of the night, but since my sleep schedule
was a tiny bit off after my surgery, I was awake to see, hear, and smell the
explosion. It was kind of a big deal to me to see something explode over my
head like that. And I don't just have my life to be concerned with. I have my
cats with me. They trust me. They're very independent animals, but I take care
of them.
I've lived my life with too many crises that God wasn't
taking care of (either because I wasn't letting Him take care of them, or because the people around me were trying to handle the crises themselves). If something in my life blows up in my face or near my face, I
want to be perching and purring on God's shoulder. I want to be safe under the
shadow of His wings. I want to remain attached to Him and stick as close to Him
as possible. I'm safe with Him. And I want Him to be the One who takes care of
the repair, the cleanup, and the aftermath. I want God to handle all of my
crises. I want to be close to Him.
Of course, I feel the need to end this post with a Carpenters
song. Why does Tirzah suddenly appear... every time... God is near? She's cray-zee.
She longs to be... close to Him.
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