De-matting

Sometimes when your pet goes through changes, you learn to accept them without thinking that perhaps you need to make some changes yourself. I mean, my cats are family. We live with one another, so we get used to one another and don't always question things that should be questioned.

When Macho came home from the vet after his surgery earlier this year, he had limited grooming abilities (because of his cone of shame), so I would clean little places in his fur that he couldn't clean for himself (like in his neck around his cone, sort of like ring around the collar).

Months later, after the cone came off and he had significantly healed, I finally noticed that he had developed little mats in his fur. Apparently, he had almost stopped grooming himself altogether (except in the places where he instinctively cleans after he uses the litterbox). I didn't realize right away that I have to groom him now.

 

So, I bought a comb/brush designed for shorthaired cats, and I gently yet firmly went to work. I ended up removing several months' worth of mats. He looks so much better now.

I'm not exactly sure why Macho stopped grooming himself as much as he used to, but maybe it's because he's getting older and skinnier. One reason why I became a cat lady in the first place was because shorthaired cats are self-cleaning and self-grooming, so I'm not used to having to do this type of maintenance for him. But I've added it to our home routine, and I'll do my best to keep him de-matted from now on. (And I think he likes the extra attention.)

Spiritually speaking, I think God has to keep me de-matted as well.

"When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places; you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess." (Numbers 33:51b-53)

"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea." (Mark 9:42)

Preachers talk all the time about how just like the Israelites had a Promised Land (Canaan) waiting for them, we Christians also have a (metaphorical) promised land to go to. All the Israelites had to do was get rid of the people (and the giants) who lived in the Promised Land and claim the territory that was rightfully theirs. Likewise, all we Christians have to do is get rid of the demons (and the iniquities) that have followed us around all our lives and claim the lives that God wants us to live.

Some preachers go into specific details about which of the iniquities (such as pride, lust, etc.) are symbolized by certain Promised-Land inhabitants (such as Jebusites, Perizzites, etc.) in the Bible. I'm not sure if I agree with such specific iniquity/people identification, but I certainly believe that certain iniquities, sins, tendencies, issues, etc., will follow you around wherever you go -- unless you get rid of them once and for all, or at least submit them to God and have Him take care of them for you. (I've noticed that sometimes I'll think He's gotten rid of something, only for that something to show up again years later, and He'll take care of it at a different level, or perhaps more thoroughly the second time around.)

For example, I feel like in some ways, I'm in my own promised land(s). In other words, I feel like I've finally found my life's calling and am beginning to walk in it. And I know for sure that one of my "giants" is neglect. If I turn to somebody for assistance, and if I feel neglected or ignored, I will have to battle through some significant emotional turmoil. I'll probably have to work through some bitterness, I'll have to go through a forgiveness process, and I'll more than likely do either a lot of crying on God's shoulder or a lot of cussing in private. In other words, if you want to make me stumble, don't put a gun to my head and force me to watch porn all day. Just make me feel neglected or ignored. Then you'll have to answer to my Father while all hell breaks loose inside my head and He helps me pick up the pieces.

So, it's important for me to stay vigilant and make sure my giants aren't about to kick the crap out of me -- again. It's important for me to stay on top of them until all of them are driven out of my promised land.

Speaking of making people stumble, one of my recent web-browsing/research obsessions has been the mass-suicide that happened in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978. More than 900 people literally "drank the Kool-Aid," a poisonous concoction that killed almost every member of a communist/religious cult. (The people who escaped this tragedy explained that it wasn't really a mass-suicide; it was a massacre.) This was a truly terrible thing that happened, and it wasn't the result of something that happened overnight. This was the result of decades of a sick man named Jim Jones winning the trust of his followers, controlling his followers, imprisoning his followers. He physically, sexually, psychologically, and spiritually abused his people who worshiped him and believed he was God. When they would try to leave his commune/church, he would guilt-trip them into staying, or he would punish them, or the cult members would report one another. It escalated when a Congressman investigated the cult and got killed in the process.

When you watch the interviews of the people who survived, you can see the grief in their faces, and you can sense the hopelessness in their souls. Now that their heaven-on-earth has been destroyed, now that their family has been murdered, now that their community is dead, and now that their God is dethroned, where can they go? What can they believe in?

It's a question that's important to answer for yourself. When someone else spoon-feeds you their own answers and tells you what to believe, that's a red flag.

Researching this 1978 tragedy has reminded me a lot of how I grew up. No, my family wasn't a cult, but it was run very similarly to one. The people in charge were abusive sickos. They oppressed the little people around them, and if you had a head on your shoulders and the guts to speak up and say, "What you're doing is wrong," you'd get openly punished. If you tried to leave, you'd be either guilt-tripped or forced into staying. And you'd be forced to believe the nonsensical doctrines that they'd force down your throat. The longer you stayed, the worse it would get.

God knew this. He knew I needed to leave my family, and He tried to warn me in 1998. I didn't obey His warning, and I stayed. It got worse. I pulled through it with God's help, but He warned me again in 2011. This time, I listened, wrestled with the reality of what needed to happen, and I finally left. I got better. (I shudder to think how much worse it would have gotten if I had never left.)

I can barely begin to tell you how much better my life is without my ex-family, the brood of vipers, the abusers, the sickos who would have done goodness-knows-what to me in the long run. It's nice to be able to make my own decisions. It's awesome to not be in the prison of a Jezebel spirit (a very controlling spirit, like the kind that was strong enough to freak out Elijah when he hid in the wilderness in the Bible). It's exhilarating to not be suffocated by fear.

Sure, I still have plenty of issues to work through (as the Israelites did after they were freed from bondage in Egypt and spent some time wandering around in the wilderness), but God has been helping me through it. And I've gotten to know Him as my Family during the process.

"For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng." (Psalm 55:12-14)

Recently, an ex-relative called me and left me a voicemail. They explained that they know how I feel and that I should contact my ex-mother who now has dementia before she forgets who I am.

Let's examine all the crap in the previous paragraph, shall we?

- Someone whom I have avoided on purpose for the past 5 years violated my boundary in the middle of a workday... because they think I'm unemployed? because they think I'm still in the family, and that I'll drop everything to wait on them hand and foot? because they don't respect me as a human being?

- This person doesn't "know" how I "feel." This is the same person who denied any abuse when I left the family and who told me that I was abusing myself. They don't know what my life is like. They don't know what it's like to rip yourself away forever from people who were precious to you. They don't know what it's like to consider the cost of building a tower (like it says to do in Luke 14:28-29) and STILL find the tower to be way more expensive than you thought it would be. If this person "knew" how I "felt," they would respect the fact that I don't want anything to do with them anymore.

- I'm sorry to hear that my ex-mother has dementia, but I wouldn't be sorry if she were to forget who I am. Not to be insensitive, but her forgetting about me would make me happy. I've mentioned this before on my blog, but my grandfather had dementia temporarily. I liked him better that way because he was suddenly interested in getting to know me (because he didn't know me), he forgot that he treated my other family members better than he had treated me, and he was a lot nicer. In the case of my ex-mother -- again, not to be insensitive -- I think perhaps her dementia might be a simple case of reaping what she has sown. All those lies that she invented over the years, all that deception that she wove, all that manipulation that she practiced, all those sicko thoughts that she entertained -- I'm sorry to say this, but I think maybe she had it coming to her. May her golden years be more peaceful than her early years.

 

Meanwhile, I recently discovered that my cat Choochie has also gone through some physical changes. Her bloodwork earlier this year indicated that her adorable little thyroid is back to normal, so she has gained some weight. Her stocky little self has also been shedding a lot of fur. I don't know if maybe neglecting to groom oneself is just an elderly cat thing, but I've had to start grooming Choochie on a regular basis, too. I've found fewer mats in her fur than I found on Macho's fur, but I did find enough of Choochie's fur to construct a brand-new kitten. Heh.

Years ago, God taught me that the way to get free and stay free from depression was to pour out my heart to Him (like it says to do in Psalm 62:8). Pour the bad stuff out of my heart; let Him pour good stuff into my heart.

Patsy Clairmont talks/writes about how important it is to stay current with your emotions. She says that emotions are like rubber bands. If you let a bunch of them get tangled up over time, you will end up with a mess that is hard to untangle. But if you stay current with them and keep untangling them one at a time -- if you keep examining each one of your emotions as soon as you can tell that it's there -- you won't end up with a mess.

I want my Father to keep combing out my mats, metaphorically speaking. I want Him to help me keep my heart, my soul, my life clean. That's not to say that I'll never stumble ever again, and that's certainly not to say that He'll punish me if I do. I grew up in an abusive family, and I didn't know it was abusive until I was in my 30s. Things that I believed were OK for most of my life... well, it turns out that they weren't OK at all. I've gone through some major internal rewiring.

My spiritual and emotional health is extremely important to me, because I want to stay sane, and because I don't want any of my iniquity-crap to follow me into my promised land. The last thing I would want to do is hurt somebody because of my issues. I want to be more like Jesus, I want to learn from my Father, and I want the Holy Spirit to cover the process, every step of the way.