It’s funny the circumstances and situations that God will use to teach us the lessons He wants us to learn. For me, these lessons seem to be crammed into very short periods of time and tend to come when I least expect them. Tonight, the credit can be given to my cat. Well, a cat and a long past due phone call.
I brought my cat to my new residence (with the roomates in Costa Mesa) two days ago. I did this for several reasons; my parents were threatening to get rid of one or more of the three cats still remaining at their house (2.5 of which’s presense is my doing), I’ve grown up having animals around and now that they are lacking it’s just plain weird, and quite frankly…I was lonely. This point will likely be referenced later on down the line. Goose is my cat. Up until this evening, she had spent the entirety of her stay hiding under the bed. I have all the understanding in the world (really) if I feel that my understanding is going to pay off. In this case, I was doubtful. She’s the cat that I bottle raised from ten days old and who has never seen another environment beyond that of my parents home with her familiar canine and feline companions. Anyway, this morning I had to drag (and by drag, I mean grab her by the scruff of the neck and forcibly remove her from under her inconvenient hiding place) and syringe feed her water simply so that she wouldn’t be dehydrated. So tonight, as nothing had changed about her demeanor, I had spoken to my parents and told them that I would be driving Goose back to their place this evening. This was at 7:52, four minutes after I had made an outoing phone call to a certain guy. I was pissed off for a number of reasons, but I had made up my mind about Goose.
I then embarked upon a mission to seek and retrieve the cat hiding in the recesses of the area underneath my bed. My bed is somewhere between a queen and king size (it’s English, thus the ambiguity) and is a mere 8 inches off of the ground. I used to go under there as a child. I’m no longer child sized. Usually, I’d call upon the aid of another person to hold up one side of the bed (it folds in half) so I can slide underneath it to get whatever it is I’m after. Tonight I was stuborn. And pissed off. And didn’t want help.
There’s an art to being difficult. First you have to accept the understanding that whatever it is you are doing is likely going to take double if not triple the amount of time it would have required if you weren’t a stubborn ass and just asked someone to help. Next, you have to come to terms with whatever discomfort you are going to have to put yourself through to get what it is you are after. This could involve added effort, pain, contortion, or perhaps all of the above as was the case for me this evening. Lastly, you have to realize that once you begin such an endevor solo status, there’s really no going back – and even when the bed is squishing the air from your lungs and causing your shoulder to become instantly bruised from it falling on you, and your hip bones are (for once) a God send because their width allows just the right amount of movement for the rest of your body as it is propping up the entirety of the weight of said bed, thus allowing you to grab the cat in question and wrench it from its oh-so-comfy hiding place against the wall in the farthest corner…you get the picture…you must follow the mission plan until it is accomplished. The point is, being difficult has its cost. For me, it’s an aray of lovely new bruises in various places on my person. For my cat, it’s a sore neck.
Anyway, I got her out…and then she started pulling this bi-polar nonsense on me. She went from hiding out to being miss friendly. Bitch. Seriously, I had my mind made up and had securely based my decision on her lack of personability in her new surroundings…then she blew me out of the water and decided to purr. So we had a moment, and then I had to try to put the kabash on the situation. I picked up a piece of her food (which has previously gone un-touched) and while presenting it to her thought to myself (and God), “ok. IF she eats this, she can stay”.
The damn cat decided to eat.
I then placed her bowl of food in front of her and she proceeded to eat quite happily. The next little while consisted of her eating, fussing, using the cat box (something I was also concerned about) and wanting little more than attention from yours truely. All the while, all I have running through my head other than thoughts of gas money saved by not having to drive out to Yorba Linda, is “Sometimes you have to wait and trust to get what you want”.
Waiting sucks. I’m bad at it. The whole concept of anticipation is somewhat lost on me. I’m a microwave person. Hell, I’m a eat-the-tuna-right-out-of-the-can rather than make-the-mixture-and-use-it-in-a-sandwich person. So, the idea of being patient is just frustrating to me. With food, with cats, with God, and yes, with relationships aswell.
Three weeks is a long time to wait for a phone call that you both want and need to happen. Sometimes, no matter which way it’s going to go, you just need to know what the hell is going on. Somewhere early on in the 2000 hour (8 something or other) and right after I’d just completed another round of near audible “wait and trust” the phone rang it’s undeniable caller-ID’d ring tone.
That situation is not one that I’ll go into in this semi-public forum. That’s not the point of this anyway. The point of this blog isn’t to be an expose of the private life of me. It’s more of yet another installment of the voiced musings of someone who’s learning more about this life and God by the moment and who’s best way to process is to write it out.
Time is an interesting thing. No matter how we try to manipulate and control the timing of our lives and our various encounters with people, there’s Someone out there who has a much better idea of how things should go than we do. As much as I shake my metaphorical fist at the One who I believe is charge of this whole show, I’ve got to give him credit: his timing is indeed perfect. If things happened as I would see them take place, there would be no lesson to be learned. There wouldn’t be weakness exposed or emotions brought to the surface. There would be no vulnerability that comes from simply trusting rather than stressing. There would be no point to relinquish what little control I have if the pay off wasn’t a much better outcome than I could have hoped for.
Yes, the cat situation is comparatively stellar. No, the relational one is not exactly as I hoped…but even with that uncertainty I do know that the biggest lesson is the one I’m finally starting to grasp: My life is fully and completely in the hands of the One who made me and adores me more than any human entity ever could. No matter how pissed off and ornery I get, His patience is insurmountable. His love is unquentiable. His plans are perfect, and (thank God) His grace is sufficient…even for angsty and stubborn me.
I’m not sure if anyone not remarkably close to me could have been tracking enough to make heads nor tales of the above…but perhaps this can make sense to more than just me.
Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
So be it.
