Category Archives: God’s Healing In a Cat

Nov3

Leaping Tall Cats With a Single Bound

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Sometimes I feel like my life is a full-time, 24/7/365 cat psychology lab, and the only thing missing is the closed-circuit TV cameras.

I had to take the cats to the vet for their six-month wellness check earlier in the week. I was able to drop them off and let the vet do his thing with them, which was easier for me, but apparently not so much for Solomon and Gracie. They called to let me know that they were ready to come home, and they told me that Gracie was cooperative, but Solomon wouldn’t let them near him. I guess I can understand. I don’t like it when doctors try and examine me either, though I don’t try and bite them like he did.

I have to take him back in a week so they can try again, only this time I’m going to stay with him. Plus they gave me an anti-anxiety medication to give him the night before, as well as 90 minutes before I bring him in. The vet tech told me it would probably make him a little drunk, which should be interesting, but it should also help to calm him down so they can treat him.

The last time I took them in for a wellness check I stayed with them, and there were no problems. So this time I think he probably got weirded out because he didn’t know any of the people who were trying to examine him, and I think if I’d been there to act as an intermediary they would have fared better with him.

Once I got them home he was fine. He acted like nothing had happened, he hadn’t just tried to bite the vet and the techs who were trying to treat him. For shame, Solomon! If you only knew, you didn’t get out of anything. Your time is coming. . .

My cats really are a lot of fun. They keep me constantly entertained. You’d never know that they’re brother-and-sister litter mates, because they’re a study in opposites. Solomon is an extrovert, while Gracie is an introvert. Solomon is Mr. Personality, where Gracie is shy and retiring. Solomon is a big, clumsy oaf, and Gracie is feminine and dainty. Solomon lets it all hang out with his tail flung out behind him like a flag, while Gracie has hers curled around her feet when she’s sitting, and close to her body when she’s moving around. Solomon is really good at that look of wide-eyed innocence, where Gracie always looks mysterious, which is why I call her Gracie the Inscrutable. Solomon talks all the time, but Gracie rarely, if ever, says a word.

There are times when they’re playing with each other that one of them, usually Solomon, will run towards Gracie, and to escape, Gracie will leap about six feet into the air, bounding over Solomon, and make it into the next room. It’s hilarious to watch, and invariably they make me giggle whenever they play.

You may be wondering why I’m focusing on my cats like this. I pondered the same thing myself, and I realized that I learn things about God by studying my cats. I understand more about the way I relate to God ~ and the way He relates to me ~ by watching them relate to each other, and to me, and I’m always interested in learning and understanding more about God. Anything that will further my understanding of God is of definite interest to me, and if studying my cats will help me gain an understanding of God, well then so be it!

1My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. 2Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. 3Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. 4Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. 5Then you will understand what it means to fear the LORD, and you will gain knowledge of God. ~ Proverbs 2:1-5, NLT.

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10, NLT.

May12

I Go to the Bathroom With Cats

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Anyone who has cats has experienced this. When you go into the bathroom, your cats go with you, because, you know, there are SOOO many interesting things to play with in there! And privacy? As far as the cats are concerned, they’re the only ones who deserve any of that. You certainly don’t. So if you want to go into the bathroom to use the facilities, so to speak, you’ll just have to get used to doing it in the presence of your cats.

There are some people who’ve decided they don’t want their cats in the bathroom when they’re in there, so they close the door so the cats can’t follow them in. The only problem with that is that the cats don’t like being shut out, so they respond by sticking their paws under the door and moving them around. I don’t bother with that, because I live alone with my cats, so I just leave the door open.

My cats have discovered that they’re big enough to climb onto the bathroom counter, as well as my dining room table. Plus, I discovered that they found the three necklaces that I’d been keeping on the bathroom counter next to the sink. Silly me, it never occurred to me that I would need to find a different place to keep them before the cats found them.

Oh well! Too late! They found my necklaces and decided they were lovely to play with, since they were all shiny and sparkly, so they played with them until two of them went down the drain in the sink. The third one got shoved off onto the floor and played with down there, and then they got bored with it. I’m so glad that necklace didn’t end up down the drain like the other two. Otherwise I might not have noticed they were gone. Fortunately, once I realized they were gone, I was able to get my wonderful housekeeper to dredge the other two out of the drain while she was cleaning.

I have the BEST housekeeper!!

They also figured out how to pull out the drain plug and play with it. From now on the cats won’t be spending any time in the bathroom unless I’m in there too. The door will remain closed otherwise.

All of the above was written several months ago, after which I put this draft away for awhile. Solomon and Gracie have grown considerably since I last looked at this, so I thought I’d get it out again, and hopefully I’ll be able to finish it now.

Solomon and Gracie are now a little over a year old, thirteen months according to the vet, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if Solomon were human he would like bathroom jokes. I suppose that sounds a little strange, but the reason I think that is because one of his favorite pastimes is to stick his nose into Gracie’s butthole and take a sniff. Gracie almost never returns the favor, but that doesn’t seem to bother Solomon. He just sniffs on and on.

Another thing he likes to do is when I’m in the bathroom he likes to chase his tail behind the shower curtain. I haven’t seen him chase his tail anywhere else in my apartment, just behind the shower curtain. He also likes to play hide-and-seek behind the shower curtain. He likes to go back there and just sit. If I look at him back there he’ll look up at me and meow, otherwise he just sits there.

The two cats have very distinct personalities. Gracie is very dainty and ladylike, and Solomon is goofy, and all boy. His tail is thicker, and he lets it trail out behind him like a flag, while Gracie’s tail is thinner and kind of pointy, and she always has it curled tastefully and elegantly around her body. Plus, Solomon talks all the time, while Gracie is the silent type. Whenever Solomon moves he lets out a squeak. Every move is accompanied by some sort of vocalization. On the other hand, I call Gracie, Gracie the Inscrutable, because she’s quite mysterious most of the time.

Both of them are very affectionate, however, which is wonderful.

Below you’ll see the most current photo of them. I just took it a few minutes ago. Oh, the wonders of smart phone photography!

Solomon is on the left, and Gracie, looking her usual inscrutable self, is on the right. Aren’t they beautiful? Biased as I am, I think they’re gorgeous! And they’re so much FUN!!

I’m so grateful to God for giving me these two amazing and rambunctious cats. At times they try my patience, but even then I’m blessed to have them.

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10, NLT.

Dec20

The Saga of Charlotte is Finished, or, Hindsight is Always Better.

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I’m feeling sad because Charlotte is gone. Over the weekend I was able to send her back to Debbie, the woman from whom I adopted her. While it makes me very sad that I had to do it, I’m also glad because, hopefully, Debbie will be able to find a more suitable placement for her. I was not that situation, unfortunately, though I wish I could have been.

This whole situation with Charlotte has taught me a number of things. For one thing, I’ve learned that I need to be much more patient when I’m waiting for God to answer my prayers.

I had prayed for a new cat after Lily died, but sometime around June I started feeling desperate for the companionship that a cat has always provided for me. So I started looking online for a new cat, even though I sensed that I might be rushing things a bit. I prayed for God’s guidance as I always do, but I tried to ignore the guidance He was sending me, which was a hesitancy, and an intuition that I should wait.

And for the record, it’s always a bad idea to ignore that hesitancy and intuition that invariably is from the Holy Spirit, telling you to wait, as it was telling me.

But I didn’t want to wait. I was feeling a bit frantic and desperate, because I was missing someone to take care of, and pet, and cuddle, and talk to.

Yup. I talk to my cat. Every pet owner I know talks to their pets as if they were human and can respond in kind. When I’m leaving to go someplace I tell her how long I’ll be gone and that I love her, and sometimes I tell her where I’m going as well. It matters not that I don’t hear a response. What matters is that she hears me say it, whether she can understand it or not.

And even more, I was missing the comfort and peace that a purring cat has always provided me. There’s just something about a purring cat that makes me feel contented. It’s hard to feel upset when you’re sitting with a cat in your lap with its motor on, with it’s body vibrating from the purring, and the sound of the roaring in your ears. I have especially missed that aspect of having a cat.

So I pushed aside God’s leading. I told myself that maybe His leading was actually the devil trying to put doubt in my mind that I wasn’t really hearing from God. That happens to me all the time anyway, so I tried to fool myself that this was one of those times, but of course, it wasn’t.

The Bible says that God isn’t the author of confusion,

For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. ~ 1 Corinthians 14:33, NKJV.

Certainly I was confused, but it was because I was creating my own confusion. It wasn’t because of anything God was doing.

So I started looking for a new cat.

And lo and behold, the devil found one for me! If you need patience, don’t pray for it. If you do, the devil will give you many opportunities to practice it. And that’s what happened here. I found a beautiful little three-month-old, part Siamese, blue-eyed kitten who was being fostered. They told me she was feral, but because she was being fostered, she had improved and her behavior was better than it had been at the beginning.

So I ignored the part about her being feral with bad behavior. I overlooked all the negative things that they were saying about her, and I only saw how pretty she was. I refused to look deeper to see the heart of darkness (the devil) that was motivating her.

In her defense, she came to me with a littermate, who I named Margaret, but about five days after they arrived, poor Margaret died, probably from an undiagnosed heart problem. And a good part of Charlotte’s problem may have been that she was lonely because she missed Margaret. She didn’t know me at all, and the one and only thing she was familiar with abandoned her soon after they arrived. I’ve wondered if somehow she blamed me for Margaret’s abandonment and death, because it happened at my house right after they got here.

Charlotte was a very smart cat. She figured out how to open doors using the doorknob, and she also figured out that she could use the bathtub as a litter box. At some point along the way, I started noticing that she was peeing in the bathtub (when she wasn’t peeing in my bed or on my cross stitch!), and pooping in the litter box.

She never took to me. She never adapted to living with me. I could never get her to come to me. She never would let me pet her, or even touch her at all. If I ever walked toward her ~ even if I was clear across the room or at the other end of my apartment ~ she would bolt away in terror, and race upstairs to my loft.

That was always incredibly frustrating to me, and it was hard not to take it personally. Rejection is still something I’m sensitive to, and even though Charlotte is a cat, I really had to work at convincing myself that it wasn’t about me, because her rejection was so consistent.

So now I’m back where I started, without a cat. Harrumph. And I’ve decided that I’m going to wait until it’s right this time. How will I know, you ask. I’ll know because I’ll have God’s peace, the peace that passes all understanding.

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:6-7, RSV.

I’ve experienced that peace when I was trying to make a decision before, and it’s pretty amazing. It calmed any confusion I was feeling previously., and I was able to go ahead with the decision I was trying to make, which was a major one, buying a car.

This is a pretty long post, and I hope everyone will forgive me for dragging it out as long as I have, but I really needed to say all this stuff.

Aug8

A Cross Stitch, New Kitties, and Two Smoking Needles

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I am now the proud owner of two new cats ~ well, kittens, really ~ they’re three months old, and litter mates. I’m going to name them Charlotte (which means “freedom”) and Margaret (which means “pearl”). I love naming my pets somewhat improbable names, and Charlotte and Margaret were the most improbable but beautiful names I could think of. Plus they have great meanings, and names with good meanings are important to me.

I adopted them from a PetsMart near me, and they are both a bit shy around strange people and places. So I’m keeping them in the bathroom, as that’s the smallest room in my apartment, and hopefully there will be less in there to frighten them. I’ve put a bowl of food and another of water in with them, and a litter box should they feel safe enough to venture out of the carrier long enough to use it if the need arises. .

Aren’t they beautiful? Charlotte is a lynx-point Siamese (Siamese-tabby mix) with blue eyes, and Margaret is a grey and white tabby with greenish-brown eyes that seem to change colors depending on the light she’s in. Charlotte is more shy than Margaret. They’re huddled up together in the back of the carrier at present, and Charlotte is squished behind Margaret. Anytime I glance in on them, Margaret looks up at me and hisses as if to show me how brave she is. It’s very sweet.

I’ve been working very hard on my cross stitch, and making great progress on it. The frustrating thing is, twice in the last three days I’ve lost a needle. I’m really excited and glad about the progress, but I can’t be losing needles right when I bring home two new cats! Needles and cats definitely don’t go together. So I’ve been frantically praying that God would show me where they are, or just plain bring them back to me before either Charlotte or Margaret has a chance to come in contact with them.

My most recent WIP.

Aug2

Charlotte’s Toys

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Even though Charlotte still won’t let me near her, she is quite active in my apartment. Debbie, the woman from whom I adopted her, gave me a bag of food and a couple of plastic sandwich bags full of toys so Charlotte would have something to play with should she so desire.

Charlotte’s Toys

Charlotte seems to love these toys, because every time I come out of my bedroom when I wake up in the morning, I find them scattered all over the floor in completely different places from where I placed them the night before. And she seems to play with them ALL the TIME because even five minutes after the last time I saw them they’ve been further scattered and in different positions than they were previously. The only rule seems to be that she doesn’t do any of it in my presence.

The fact that she refuses to play in my presence brings up another, slightly sticky subject. She still won’t come near me, and runs from me if I walk anywhere even remotely close to her. I did manage to get her to sleep in the same room with me last night by virtue of closing the door to my bedroom immediately after coming in so she wouldn’t have a chance to escape. But I wasn’t sure if she was actually in the room, because it was dark, and I couldn’t see anything.

And, as it turned, out she was in the room, as I found out this morning when she woke me up because she wanted to get out, but couldn’t because the door was closed. It was the first time she’d made a sound since I got her, so I was delighted that she woke me up so I could hear her voice. She has a tiny, high-pitched, squeaky cry, but she’s still pretty little, being only three months old.

So when she started meowing I got up to open the door. When I stood up, she leapt into the air in terror and flew into the far corner of the room with her tail all floofed out. It was quite a sight. She’s such a pretty little thing with her blue eyes, but the terror she was obviously feeling kind of obliterated everything else.

Charlotte In Her Carrier Right After I Got Her Home

Isn’t she beautiful? I think she’s perfectly lovely! I just hope and pray that she’ll get used to me so she’s no longer terrified of me. I love her so much already!

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10, NLT.

So that’s the latest in the continuing saga of Charlotte!

Aug1

No Shame Allowed

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Every once in awhile something happens for which, unaccountably, I feel so much shame that I can’t talk about it with anyone. I was able to talk with McT and one friend about it, but it’s taken me several days to convince myself that I need to blog about it.

In a previous post (A Cross Stitch, New Kitties, and Two Smoking Needles), I talked about becoming the proud parent of two new kittens. Well, on Wednesday, the 28th, five days after bringing them home, Margaret died.

She died! What am I to do? She died!

I felt such devastation that I was overwhelmed and at a loss for words, for action, for anything and everything. All I could do was cry out to God, “My God! Why? What happened?”

About twenty minutes before it happened, she had allowed me to pick her up and pet her. This was surprising to me, as she hadn’t let me come close to her at all before that. Then all of a sudden she let me hold her and pet her. I cuddled her for about fifteen minutes, then she got down and disappeared, and I continued to watch TV. Then I got up and tried to find her.

I didn’t have to look very far, because she was on the floor around the corner from the couch where I was sitting, and when I looked at her I could see that she wasn’t breathing, plus her mouth was wide open. When I touched her she was cold and stiff.

Shock coursed through my body. What did I do wrong? I left fresh food and water out for her ~ for both of them ~ at all times, and I made sure that the litter box was clean. Plus I changed the water every day. Surely I couldn’t have done something wrong, but maybe I did.

Did I kill her? I was terrified that I had done something to cause her death, but I couldn’t think of anything that I might have done. I had decided earlier in the day that I was going to take her to the vet the next day, because she needed to be seen, and because she had been acting like she wasn’t feeling well. But then she died before I got the chance.

I emailed the woman from whom I had adopted them, and told her that Margaret had died. She replied that she didn’t think I was responsible, that Margaret must have had some kind of undiagnosed heart condition. She said she would pay for a necropsy to find out the cause of death, but after doing some online research, we both decided that was way too expensive. I felt like I could accept her idea of an undiagnosed heart problem, so we both let it go at that.

So now I’m left with the confusion and desolation I feel because of her death, and the hole in my heart that’s there, even though I only had her for five days. And as I said at the beginning, unaccountably, I feel a huge amount of shame. I don’t know why, but I do. Somehow, even if her demise wasn’t caused by me, it must have been my fault. There must have been some way in which I was responsible. It’s not logical, I know, but there it is.

I wonder if at least part of it doesn’t go back to Harry blaming me for stuff that I couldn’t have been responsible for when I was little, and for the cult rituals doing the same thing. There was one particular ritual that they did when I was about two where I had to answer questions, and if I got the wrong answer, a man was slowly lowered into a bonfire and burned alive.

The problem was, the questions were unanswerable. There were no right answers, though there was no way I could know that, especially at age two. So I had to answer these unanswerable questions, get the wrong answers because there weren’t any right ones, and listen to the screams of agony of the guy as he was lowered into the bonfire. And the whole thing was all my fault ~ or so they told me.

Talk about the essence of torture, both for the guy being burned alive, and for little two-year-old me!

But I’m no longer living in that reality. I’ve been set free from that life, thank God. And interestingly, I named the other kitten Charlotte, and she, thankfully, is alive and well, even though she still won’t let me near her. I discovered in the process of deciding on Charlotte’s name, that “Charlotte” means “freedom”. Maybe that’s why God motivated me to name her that, I don’t know. All I know is that before I brought them home, the name Charlotte was the only name I could think of.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ~ John 8:32, NLT.

And this is the truth that will set you free,

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. ~ Romans 10:9-10, NLT.

As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” ~ [Isaiah 28:16, Greek Version], Romans 10:11, NLT.

So, regardless of how I feel, I must go on what Scripture says. If God’s Word says I am FREE, then I AM FREE. That means NO SHAME ALLOWED!! I did not cause Margaret’s death, and I did not cause that man to be burned alive!!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ~ Galatians 5:1, NIV.

Jun24

Loneliness In All Its Combinations and Permutations

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I hope you will indulge me in a little goofiness here at the beginning . . .

Here I am again, trying to fill a blank page. Reminds me of the phone bills I used to get with pages that were blank. And then, if you look more carefully, you see this ridiculous phrase planted in the middle of the blank page that says,

This page intentionally left blank.

Which automatically invalidates itself, because by the presence of that phrase, the page is no longer blank.

At this point I’m giggling helplessly because it’s so illogical.

I think I get why they put it there ~ because if they left the page blank without telling you that it’s blank on purpose, they’d probably get all kinds of calls and emails from people wanting to know if there’s a mistake on their bill because there’s a blank page, and the phone company wants to avoid that if they can. Kinda silly, if you ask me.

Enough of this foolishness. The whole blank-page-in-the-phone-bill thing is something I’ve wanted to mention to someone for years, but never had an opportunity before. But now I have my own platform of sorts. So you all are the (unfortunate?) recipients of my meandering thoughts.

Lucky you! Now on to more serious matters.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. When I hear people talk about how amazing their dads are, I get all jumbled up and confused inside, and of course, I hear people’s stories about their wonderful dads everywhere on Father’s Day, and on the days leading up to it as well. So I spend the entire week before Father’s Day wanting to hide because I can’t stand how muddled I feel inside. It really kind of sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to ride it out, and look to God, who is my real Father.

But that’s the problem. Even though I love knowing that God loves me, and that He loved me enough to send Jesus to die on the cross for me, I also know that His love for me is spiritually based. And that’s amazing and marvelous and wonderful. It saved my life, both here on earth, and best of all, for all eternity. When I die I’ll get to meet Jesus face to face, the best reality imaginable.

However, until that becomes my reality, I’m stuck here on earth, and while I’m here I still need the physicality of a hug, or a spoken word from the mouth of a friend-in-front-of-me. It’s not that I don’t value my relationship with God. It’s the most important relationship in my life, and I can’t live without it. But there are times when you need something tangible, and you can’t get a hug from God.

This is especially true during the times of coronavirus, where we all have to stay home, and engage in social isolation and all that stuff. Enforced loneliness gets a little old after awhile, as much as I like being alone.

I have a close friend whom I haven’t seen in months because of COVID-19, and I miss her terribly. We used to get together on Thursday nights to watch Doc Martin on TV, and we haven’t been able to since sometime in March because of the pandemic. We talk on the phone and text back and forth, but it’s just not the same. You can’t hug someone through the phone or in a text. And you can’t see someone’s facial expressions in response to what you say to them through the phone or in a text.

There’s something about being able to see someone’s laughter when you tell them a joke, or see someone’s tears in response to something you said that saddened them. You don’t realize how important visual cues are in relating to people until you’ve been deprived of them.

And it’s all well and good if you’re quarantined with family, but I’m not. It’s me and my cat, and she doesn’t speak English. She also doesn’t laugh or cry. The most I get from Lily is purring. And don’t get me wrong. Her purring is great. She has a wonderfully loud motor, and it doesn’t take much to turn it on.

But I have no control over Lily and her motor, and she picks the most inopportune times to give me affection ~ like when I’m trying to cross stitch. Invariably when I want to cross stitch is when she decides it’s time to get in my lap. And there’s no room for both stitching and cat, so cat takes precedence.

I should just tell her to get lost, but I feel guilty when I do. Plus if I do that, she will get down, but then she comes back and we go through the same routine later, again and again and again. She’s gonna get her way, come hell or high water ~ or my cross stitch. And I can’t let her sit there while I stitch because if I do, then my stitching ends up full of cat hairs, and it’s a mess.

So what all this boils down to is, even people who like being alone get lonely at times. At least this hermit-person does. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. And the cool thing is, I get to see my friend tomorrow night!

WAY COOL!! YIPPEE!!

Yup, I have a doctor’s appointment in Orange County tomorrow morning, and it’s an in-office visit, and my friend lives in Orange County. So after I’m done seeing my doctor, I’m going to goof around for awhile, and then I’m going to my friend’s house for the evening. We’ll watch Doc Martin, we’ll eat dinner, and we’ll talk about all the things we haven’t been able to talk about all these months. And we’ll hug each other, and we’ll look at each other, and we’ll LAUGH long and loudly.

I can’t wait, and neither can she. She told me so when I called her to tell her I was coming.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ~ Proverbs 17:17, NKJV.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. ~ Proverbs 27:6, NKJV.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. ~ Proverbs 27:17, NLT.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. ~ John 15:13, NKJV.

So I guess what I’m learning out of all this is that it’s okay to be alone, but it’s also okay to need ~ and want ~ the fellowship of others.

Thank God for my friends!!

And maybe my blank page goofiness at the beginning was an expression of loneliness, because the page, when completely blank, might have been lonely in all it’s white blankness, and when they added that ridiculous phrase, maybe the words made it feel less lonely ~ if an inanimate object can feel anything at all.

Here’s to a little laughter during COVID-19!

Jun18

My Brain Has Flown the Coup, and Then Come Back Again

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At the beginning of my last post, Ideas Flitting In and Out, I suggested some possible titles I was thinking about using for a blog post. The above was one of them. I kind of liked it so I thought I’d use it, considering I’m having trouble gathering enough thoughts to create a sentence, much less a whole blog post.

Lily, my cat, has decided that right now is the time for her to crawl into my lap and be affectionate. So that’s what she’s done, purring loudly, with her head nudging my right elbow, as I’m trying to type. Of course it’s almost impossible to concentrate, much less write down what I’m thinking about, with her doing all that, but it’s hard to turn her away because her motor and her beautiful blue eyes are so appealing.

Just thought I’d let you know what fun I’m having while I’m trying to write! Lily has always been a gift from God, and I love her dearly, but it gets interesting when she wants me to pet her right when I’m trying to write.

Back at it, Lily notwithstanding…

I’ve been feeling less depressed since that memory surfaced last Thursday while I was writing, and I’m very relieved about that. It’s extremely difficult for me to function when I get that depressed. It’s hard for me to blink and breathe when it gets that bad, so I can’t get anything done, not even reading my Bible. 

Fortunately, as I said, I am feeling a bit better, so I’m blinking and breathing easier and more often, thankfully. It’s kind of like a boil was lanced when that memory came up, to use an analogy. I do think I’ll need to explore the well from that memory with McT, because I’m not sure I’m done with it yet. Thankfully I’m supposed to have a phone appointment with him this afternoon.

So I had my appointment with McT, and it was, as always, a really good conversation. He is so easy to talk to! He just makes things easier. You know, things. Things that are hard to talk about. Things that hard to think about. Things that are hard to see, or hard to hear. I’m more and more able to trust him with the really hard stuff, the bits and pieces of my life that I’ve never been able to tell anyone.

The reason it feels like my brain has flown the coup is because, even though I’m feeling less depressed, most of the time my mind is blank, without thoughts ~ thoughtless, as it were, and I can’t figure out where they’ve all gone. I seem to be able to think enough to speak, so where are my thoughts when I want to write? It’s very frustrating and distressing.

I hate feeling like I have to wing it without knowing what’s going to come out when I say something. I have to trust myself, and that’s even harder than trusting God or McT. I have to trust that I won’t blurt out something stupid or obscene, or that I won’t say something that goes against what I believe or that dishonors God in some way.

I learned early on that I couldn’t trust my own reality, something that’s common amongst abuse survivors, because no one believed anything I told them. Plus Harry forced us to lie about what he was doing to us.

There’s a certain point at which someone who is forced to lie all the time begins to believe that the lies she’s telling are actually true. I think that happened to me, and was probably at least partly why I repressed the truth and remembered the lies. I couldn’t have survived otherwise.

But now that I’ve experienced so much healing at the Hand of God, I’m beginning to learn that I can trust myself and my reality. It’s been a hard lesson to learn, even harder than learning to trust God. I’ve always had the Bible to show me I can trust God, but I’ve never had anything on which to base any ability to trust myself, other than just… myself. Which didn’t make me feel confident at all. I mean, I wasn’t able to trust myself before, so why would I trust myself now? And no one else trusted me, so why would I trust myself?

However, as I’ve gotten stronger and more and more healed, I’ve grown more and more confident. And I’ve learned that my voice is worthy of being heard, and that I no longer have to remain silent. I can trust that what I have to say is just as meaningful and useful as anyone else’s message, because I have God on my side, and He will always come first.

It’s taken me over a week to write this post. I started on June 9th, and I’m almost ready to publish it today, nine days later. It’s evolved through a number of topics ~ as I thought it would ~ and in the process I feel like my brain has flown back into the coup.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. ~ James 1:17, KJV.

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? ~ Numbers 23:19, NLT.

Trust is a big thing for me. It has to be earned, and I’ve tried hard to earn the right to trust myself. I’ve tried hard to earn the right for God to trust me, if you can do that. I hope you can, because I desire that God would trust me above all else.

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. ~ Hebrews 11:6, NKJV.

 

Nov28

Lily and Gratitude to God On Thanksgiving Day

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In a previous post (The Itch to Write), I talked about having to take my cat, Lily, to the vet. Well, I did it. That was a week ago today, last Thursday. They kept her for four days, until Sunday. The doctor diagnosed pancreatitis, and said that I may have been feeding her the wrong food, something she had originally prescribed for Lily several years ago for various reasons.

So I picked her up after church on Sunday, and the vet had a prescription for a new kind of food, as well as instructions on how to deal with any flareups from the pancreatitis, because she said that would come and go from time to time.

Now that she’s home, she’s much happier. She’s only vomited once, whereas before she was vomiting all the time, and she really likes the new food a LOT. Once she forgave me for taking her to the vet, as evidenced by the fact that she stopped avoiding me about five hours after we got home, she was back to her old self ~ cuddling with me while I watched TV, following me into the bathroom whenever I went there, and talking to me about anything and everything as she walked around my apartment.

I’ve wondered from time to time if my love for the various cats I’ve had over the years is something that’s pleasing to God or not, but then I found this verse in the Book of Proverbs,

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10, NLT. 

Once I’d read that, I knew it was okay with God that I love and care for my various and sundry pets, and in fact, it would be wrong if I didn’t.

Even though it cost me over $800 this last time at the vet, the doctor gave me a number of discounts, which she always does, so it could have been even higher, plus I’m always very pleased with the way she handles Lily. She’s always extremely gentle and unfailingly kind whenever she touches her, and the staff is the same way, even though Lily is well known for being a bit of a spitfire and a biter while she’s there. The biting is only because she’s nervous and afraid because I’m not there, and I hate that she does that, plus she doesn’t do it with me at home, except very infrequently when she’s mad at me. In addition the staff doesn’t seem to mind ~ I always apologize, and they always tell me not to worry about it. I’m not that bothered by the cost, because I have faith that God supplies my every need,

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:19, KJV.

I love this verse, and I repeat it to myself all the time, a sort of meditation, kind of like a cow chewing her cud. The whole of Philippians 4 is full of rich nuggets, and Philippians 4:19 is just one of many.

In this verse, the Apostle Paul is talking to the Philippian Church, and he reminds them that the same God who meets his needs will also provide for them, and all of it will come from His riches in Glory through Christ Jesus. You can bet that’s a LOT of wealth, because, as the Bible says, God owns all the cattle on a thousand hills, and all the gold and silver are His as well,

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. ~ Psalm 50:10, KJV.

‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ~ Haggai 2:8, NIV. 

I especially like Philippians 4:19 in the New Living Translation,

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:19, NLT.

So, in summary, Lily is better ~ thankfully ~ and God, being my source, is still on the throne of my life ~ where He will remain forever and always ~ even more thankfully.

 

Aug17

Revelations Anew…

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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!