Ever since I moved to Rancho Cucamonga a year ago last January I’ve had an almost impossible time cleaning out Lily’s litterbox. During my last couple of years in Irvine I had gotten to the point where I was able to clean it out everyday and be consistent about it, but moving to Rancho seemed to erase that habit completely.

SO FRUSTRATING!!

And so not good for Lily too, but I just could not get myself to do it differently, and it’s been like that since January of 2014 when I moved.

HARRUMPH…

So fast forward to August of 2015 and I’m still struggling with Lily’s litterbox, but I’ve been praying about it and I’ve been asking Jeff to pray about it in therapy as well.

God finally answered (God’s timing is perfect)! Jeff prayed about it in therapy on Saturday, and Sunday evening I started cleaning out the litterbox. And God started showing me that doing what has always felt to me like the world’s most odious, vile, and onerous task is actually a great privilege, kind of like Jesus washing the disciples’ feet (that was the illustration He gave me).

The reason for this is that Lily has always been the most incredible gift straight from the Lord to me, always making me laugh no matter how I feel, always filling me with delight, always just being there with me no matter what, and being there for me too I suppose, if a cat can be there for you as a friend can. So cleaning out her litterbox, something she can’t do for herself, is, in a way, thanking her for all the things she does for me just by being herself.

Well, knock me over with a feather, I’d never thought of it like that before! That puts a whole new and different slant on what has always been the MOST difficult job for me! It almost changes it into a completely different task, one that I can almost enjoy doing because I’m doing it to care for my treasured companion’s most basic needs.

I could almost get into this!