I miss Lily. I can’t even describe how much I miss her. My apartment is as silent as a tomb, even with the TV on. I’ve never felt lonely before. I’ve never minded being alone before. But now that Lily is gone, all of a sudden I’m experiencing loneliness. For the first time in my entire life I know what it is to feel lonely, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. It feels like there’s a cat-shaped hole inside me that wasn’t there before.

I’ve heard it said that there’s a God-shaped hole inside every person, and the only way to fill it is to get saved. God filled that hole in me back in February of 1972 because that’s when I got saved. So while the God-sized hole has been filled and will remain so, the cat-shaped hole is suddenly empty, achingly so.

I never thought there was such a hole in my heart. I only knew about the God-shaped hole, and that’s the only one I ever worried about, because it’s the only one of any real importance. Knowing about ~ and filling ~ this cat-hole I’ve discovered won’t really do anything except make me feel better. A filled cat-hole won’t get me into Heaven, and it won’t bring me a relationship with God. Only Jesus Christ in my life will do that, and that’s the way I want it. Jesus is everything to me. Lily was a gift from God in the first place, so maybe that cat-shaped hole was placed in me by God, I don’t know. Maybe a cat in my life will be the way that God alleviates loneliness in me, in addition to relationship with Him.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year I’ve spent my time during quarantine playing with Lily before she got sick, watching TV, playing June’s Journey (my computer game), and working on a counted cross stitch sampler.

That cross stitch sampler is a whole story all by itself. Especially since Lily died it’s provided a way of distracting me from the pain and grief of losing her so that I’m able to focus on something else. I love working on it. I enjoy planning what colors I’m going to stitch where. And aside from all other considerations I just love color. I love being surrounded by color. Color feeds my soul. I love that God created humans with the ability to see in color, and then He gave us such a beautiful and colorful world to look at. That’s one of the things that tells me He’s a good God. Way back in March of 2020 I wrote a post on beauty that’s one of my favorite posts ever, called When Faith Becomes Sight. It’s got lots of pictures in it, and I had a great time writing it.

I’ve been meandering around as I’m writing this. I started writing it well over a month ago, and then I just stopped writing altogether. Then someone new started following me earlier this afternoon, so I decided I should start writing again so my new follower ~ as well as everyone else ~ would have something to read. I am supposed to be a blogger afterall, so I should blog, seems to me.

And here’s a picture of my most recent WIP (work-in-progress) of my sampler:

I still have a whole lot of work to do. I’m working on the bottom right corner of the sampler, but I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. I hope you like what you see here!