Lessons from a Little Cat

I live in an Independent Village on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. I have lived here 12 years. When I was first here and younger, I went out quite often at night. When I drove back into the carpark at about 10pm, I would quite often see this little cat,a stripped tabby, with a very pretty face. As I am a cat lover, I would try to befriend her. I had assumed she was a girl because of the very pretty face and because she was quite a small cat even though obviously fully grown. She would not let me come near her. If I tried she would run off. However she would sit and listen to me talk to her, tell her how beautiful she was. There were a few cats that frequented our village at this time, and the management checked up on them all and it was found out she belonged to a family a little further down our street. She did have a home and a family. But our village backs onto a national park and so is very popular with cats. There were four coming at this time. But things were about to change

Moving on 11 years, one morning I was standing out near my front garden when she came up to me and started rubbing up against my legs. I reached down and patted her. Every morning after that she was there waiting for a pat. Then she would sit on my knee on an old plastic chair I used when I cut my toenails. She would never try to come inside. But she was vomiting up quite regularly when she first came. I realised she was sick, but she was quite plump and even with all the vomiting she was not losing weight. I would have taken her to a vet, but she would still take off if I tried to pick her up. She was very frightened of every quick movement around her and every sound, and would race away.It would have been impossible.

Over time she slowly accepted a very small amount of food from me and then she very cautiously came inside my front door. It was summer and the ants were unbelievable. The food outside was attracting them. She slowly stopped vomiting all the time and then would come and go from my unit as she willed. Sometimes she would be gone for days. And she was obviously better from whatever was making her sick. This took about three months. I did make an effort to find her owners by a letterbox drop in the area but got no response. It was after this that I learnt she was not a she but a neutered male. No wonder my letterbox drop got no response.

Now he comes and spends some time with me most days. He is the most affectionate cat I have ever known. It is now seven months since his behaviour change. So what lesson did I learn. I love to see God in everything because He created everything and cats are one of His very special creations. I likened this little cat’s behaviour to me as what our behaviour to God should be. I had tried for 11 years to befriend him and he stood off and liked to listen to me but he was not going to get involved with me. Then he gets sick. Immediately he knows where to go for help. He makes a decision to trust me and then slowly to build on that trust, to accept food, then to come inside my unit. He instinctively knew he could rely on me. He had slowly learnt who I was in that I still talked to him every night when I saw him, even though he would not come to me. I never ignored him. I was patient with his frailties, the fear and the distance. I still let him know I thought he was beautiful and that I would be kind to him. We now have a beautiful friendship.

This is how I realised God had been with me for all the years I was sick before I became desperate and decided to trust Him. Over the many years He had shown me I could count on Him And now this little cat and I have something very special in common. He is very grateful to me for being there for him and I am extremely grateful to God for being there for me. He and I have a beautiful relationship. He is trustworthy. And He gives us what this little cat needed from me. To know that he is loveable, to know that somewhere someone does care, to know that there is a safe place in this unsafe world, to have someone to pat you and to snuggle up to. So beautiful. Think you can’t snuggle up to God. Yes you can. He loves it.

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