Thinking Outside the Box

We have a large, unruly herd of cats at our house. Having all those cats come around clamoring and yowling during feeding time makes it hard for me to feel compassionate or patient. That's why it's not usually me who feeds the cats. It's my daughter, Sara.

Sara is a cat-lover, a hen-lover, a dog-lover, an any-animal-lover. She takes very good care of the animals around this place. However, last night there was a cat situation, a “cat-astrophe” of sorts.

Very shortly after Sara went out to feed the animals in the evening, she was back, crying at the door.

“Mom, what should I do? I'm such an idiot!”

“What's the matter, Sara?” I asked. I opened the door to see Sara cradling one of the calico cats in her arms.

“Mom! What should I do? I always check! Why didn't I this morning? Mom, I'm so stupid!”

“Sara, what happened?”

“I always check, but this morning I didn't! This cat always goes in the food box and I always check before I close it, but this morning I didn't. I wasn't even late! Why didn't I check? And now look! She's shaking and what do I do??” Frantic words and tears gushed out out of my tenderhearted daughter.

Those crazy cats! Whenever I go out to feed them, a number of them are guaranteed to get their heads clunked with a lid or their bodies motivated by a boot. I hate it when cats jump in the rubbermaid tub containing the cat food. Evidently, there is one in particularly who always does it and unlike me, Sara took note of this one's propensity to be where it should not be and, rather than clunking its head, gently removes it from the box before replacing the lid. Except for this morning.

Evidently, the cat had spent this relatively warm winter day trapped in a rubbermaid tub with more food than it knew what to do with and significantly less water and air than it needed. My first instinct was to say, oh, it'll be fine. But then Sara set the cat down on the porch and the cat wobbled around rather drunkenly. Her fur coat was looking a little sweaty and her whole back-end looked rather matted and sickly. The prospects didn't look so good.

“What do I do?” Sara's wail brought me back to the task at hand. I am not so tenderhearted towards cats but I am not as callous as to intentionally sentence a cat to an untimely death in the cold. So I told Sara to bring it inside. In between tears and self-berating, Sara held the cat while I got a dish of water. The cat was not interested in water – not a good sign. Sara wrapped the cat in an old towel I gave her. She rubbed it down and held the shivering cat in her lap. 

Now let me tell you, this cat STANK! Having spent a frantic day in a dusty cat food box, soiling itself and the food, it did not smell nice. It was not a pleasant situation but Sara held it and calmed it for maybe thirty minutes.  Eventually, it started to make an attempt at purring and she tried giving it water again. This time, it drank and then drank some more and then drank again. The cat drank a lot then climbed back onto Sara's lap. This drinking and snuggling went on for some more time until the cat began to feel well enough to shake less and wander about a little. 

 Though Sara was a little nervous about bringing the cat back outside, we knew it would be best for it to go back to its normal life with its companions in the straw. Sara gently carried it outside, placed it inside the straw tunnel where the cats sleep and stayed long enough to make sure it wouldn't be expelled by its peers for smelling so bad. A relatively happy ending to a traumatic day for the cat.

I was glad things turned out the way they did for both the cat and my daughter. Even while she was holding the shivering cat, Sara said she hoped this would be a story we could all laugh at one day. I think we will. And while one can't take this story too far as an analogy, I was also thinking about how Sara's actions last night with the sickly, smelly cat remind me of how God deals with us. We, like the crazy cat, sometimes get ourselves into situations that are detrimental to our well-being that we can't get out of by ourselves. God, in time, comes along and opens the lid and lets us out; he holds us while we shiver and try to get our bearings; he wraps us in loving kindness and gives us the essentials of life, even when we're distasteful; and then, when the time is right, he brings us back to the place where we belong.

The LORD appeared to us in the past saying:

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;

I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

Jeremiah 31:3

For this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

I myself will search for my sheep and look after them...

I will rescue them from all the places where

they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness....

I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.

I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak...

Ezekiel 34:11, 12b, 16a