Being ourselves

Warning: I'm going to write about my aging cat in this post, so things might get a little gross. And I'm going to talk about my relationship with God, so I might use some PG-13 language. Just a heads-up.

When I was a little girl, maybe about 5 years old, I was out shopping with my family. Rather, Dad was inside the store shopping, while Mom and sister and I were hanging out in the car. (We used to do that a lot, and I'm not sure why, but whatevs.) We had the windows open, and I saw a woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s, walking across the parking lot. She was wearing tennis shoes, and for some reason this struck me as odd because I had never seen that before. In fact, I blurted out loudly, "An old lady with tennis shoes??" She heard me, because she suddenly turned her head toward our car. She kept walking and didn't approach us, but I probably hurt her feelings. And I definitely embarrassed Mom.

Yes, even as a child, I used to freely speak my mind. Are you surprised?

Years later, of course I understand that there's nothing wrong with being "an old lady with tennis shoes," especially since now I'M the old lady with tennis shoes. And I take selfies everywhere, even in the church restroom. 'Cause that's how I roll.

I'll be 40 in a couple of months, and although I really don't consider 40 to be "old," I guess comparatively speaking, it kind of is. For example, if a college-age male flirts with me, I ain't gonna flirt back. Are you kidding? I'm old enough to be your mom, son.

I'm not sure if I've ever had an official mid-life crisis (although I've had plenty of other kinds of crises), but I've had plenty of time to think about my life and figure some stuff out. I'm definitely an adult, but in some ways I still live like a college student (e.g., I've lived in this apartment for three years but have never, ever used my stove/oven, and I don't ever intend to). I enjoy the independence of living alone and doing whatever the heck I want (e.g., I stopped by the McDonald's drive-thru and bought an ice cream cone on the way to mail my tax return today).

My independence is God's gift to me. Maybe that's one thing that sets me apart from other women my age. I'm definitely not the only 39-year-old independent woman in the world. I'm definitely not the only "old lady" who walks around in tennis shoes.

But I am me.

I have to be myself. I think God would be heartbroken if I weren't myself.

 

In my previous post, I mentioned that my cat Macho recently had surgery to remove his little thing. (Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to pee on his own.) His recovery has been interesting, to say the least. See his adorable little butt that's groomed/shaved metrosexual style?

Seriously, oh my gosh, he is such a drama queen. I never have to guess how he's doing, because he'll come find me and tell me. Or if I wait long enough, he'll show me. For example, I knew it was time to take him back to the vet yesterday when I caught him peeing blood in my bathtub. (He was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, and I was warned beforehand that he could get this type of infection with his type of surgery.)

But even when everything's going well and he isn't having any health crises, he is so clingy. He follows me around everywhere. Sometimes when I come home, he's waiting for me by the front door like a little dog. He meows at me to feed him at 3:30 in the morning. He meows at me to feed him anytime I mention anything food-related. He tries to sneak inside the refrigerator nearly every time I open it.

He wants to snuggle with me on the couch. He wants to snuggle with me on my lap. He wants to snuggle with me while I'm typing on my computer. He wants to snuggle close by anytime I play my piano keyboard.

I have to keep a close watch on him. Sometimes he'll bully my other cat Choochie. (Which is probably why she swats her claws at his face every time he struts by her food bowl.) If he does #2 in the litterbox, I have to wipe his little metrosexual butt immediately or I might find a surprise somewhere in my apartment later. If he does #1, lately he's been missing the litterbox, and I've had to clean up after him. If he vomits, I have to clean it up right away or he'll eat it (seriously, he's like a dog). If he has difficulty with any of the above, I won't really have a moment's rest.

Right after he had his surgery, he had trouble learning how to control his newer, freer flow, so he ended up giving himself some kind of infection (possibly a fungal one; it's still being tested) on his belly. He was prescribed two different medicines to treat it, so now I have to apply these topical drugs on him every few hours. And I've been washing blankets and pillowcases and keeping Macho away from my bed and my table where I eat. Because, like a paranoid little mama, I don't want Choochie or myself to catch what he has.

And yet, I have no idea why he keeps getting sick, because he's as healthy as a horse. I recently discovered that I can't eat chicken anymore because Macho will climb on me and claw at me unless I feed him from my plate. Sometimes I give in to his desires just so that he will give me a moment's peace.

The truth is, Macho is completely helpless without me. Yes, my apartment was SO QUIET while he was away at the animal hospital, but I would rather have him here with me than not at all. He's a hot mess, but he's my little hot mess.

And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Macho has to be himself. Anytime he's not himself, I know that something is horribly wrong.

"So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him." (Psalm 45:11)

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" (Psalm 46:10)

Macho reminds me so much of myself. I'm just as overly dramatic, emotionally helpless, and clingy as he is (if not more so), and maybe there have been times in my life when God just gave in to what I was asking Him for because I was desperate and wouldn't leave Him alone. (Kind of like that neighbor or that judge in those parables where Jesus describes prayer.)

But just as quirky as I am, or just as quirky as my cat is, I think we both learned from the Master. I mean this respectfully, but God can be kind of crazy, too. See that photo a couple of paragraphs up? That's a once-in-a-lifetime selfie of me holding Macho (while he was wearing his little lampshade) and trying to make some eye contact with him. I was trying to meet him where he was.

God does the same thing with us, of course. He stoops down and tries to connect with us exactly where we are. Yes, of course the only way to access God the Father is through Jesus, but the fact is that He wanted so much to be near us that He actually BECAME one of us. And after we accept Him, He puts His Holy Spirit inside us -- He actually LIVES INSIDE US.

I don't know of any other god who does that. My God seriously wants us. He's for real. And He interacts with us in a way that I don't think any other god would reduce himself or herself to do.

For example, I don't remember the exact words of our conversation, but I recently was talking to my God about how tough I've become. I was like, "I'm a badass." And, because He's always going to be better than everybody else, He was like, "I'm the Baddest Ass of them all."

Yes, Father. With all due respect, and definitely in the spirit of what You were saying, You are absolutely correct. You are always going to be absolutely correct.

'Cause that's how You roll.

People may not always know how to break through all my quirks, temperament, or personality, and simply connect with me. But God always knows how.

I love my church. It's so huge that it meets on several different campuses at the same time. Sometimes I'll be going through something hard, and at church God will speak something very specific that I need to hear. On a couple of occasions, during a season when I was experiencing very deep grief, people walked up to me and said, "I feel like God told me to give you a hug." At the campus closer to my home, on a day when I happened to be thinking about my finances, a person sitting behind me told me that they felt like they needed to give me $100. Yesterday when I was feeling a little bit self-conscious about my looks, a perfect stranger walked up to me after the worship music and said, "I felt like the Lord said that you're beautiful and your worship is beautiful."

Wow. And all I did was show up. (See? You should go to church, if you don't already.)

Ideally, church is a place where you can show up and be yourself, and God can show up and be Himself.

At home, in my struggle to be OK with having a non-religious "quiet time," where I'm still on Psalm 46, God has boiled down our short, quiet times together: "I just want to cuddle with you."

That's my Father. That's how He rolls. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

God has to be Himself, and I have to let Him. I honestly don't know how I would exist otherwise.