Lessons Learned from a Kitten

Oscar is now six months old. As Nana would say, "he sure is a rascal!"

Being firmly entrenched in the kitten stage, Oscar pounces anything and everything. This includes human hands and feet and the occasional wrapping of himself like a sock around passing ankles.

Sir Pounce-a-lot

While attempting to pet Oscar this morning, his pouncing and grabbing with claws in full force, I heard myself exclaim, "Would please stop hurting me? I just want to love you." and was struck by how often God must say that to us.

How many times do I lash out with claws and do hurtful things while He only wants to love me?

Other times, I want nothing more than to wrap Oscar in my arms and snuzzle the top of his head. Oscar's only goal is to play, pounce and chomp. He's oblivious to my desire to wrap him up and love him.

This furry flurry is a version of myself ignorant of God's desire to wrap me up in His love.

Twice in a matter or moments, a kitten has taught me about the Father who loves me enough to fight through the claws.

Rookies

A new bus driver has taken over the kids' bus route. J is very sweet and has a wonderful, engaging smile. She's new to the route AND new to driving a school bus. 

Rookie. Newbie. Perhaps a helmet with big green horns a la Deadliest Catch is in order.

In the one week, the kids have been late to school a few times because she's missed a stop and had to go around the block. It's a rural route. Around the block has a whole different meaning and time frame.

Last Thursday it was our turn. At the end of the day the bus came up the road and zoomed right by with me waving at the kids and the kids waving back.

And what's to be done in that situation. Really. What can be done? Is the drop off now going to happen after ALL the rest of the kids are dropped off? Will she find a way to turn around? Just go around the huge country block? Who knows. Going into the house means no one will be there when the bus does arrive so I sit back down on the waiting bench.

Surprisingly, there was no anxiety, no real worry that something had gone amiss, just a pondering of what would happen next and curiosity as to how the situation would resolve. Shoulders shrug and hands are tucked into pockets to wait.

It occurred to me then that J's situation is much like any rookie and especially a rookie follower of Christ.

We do our best. We try to do the "right thing" all the time but sometimes miss the stop. We're distracted. Even not so rookie Christ followers get distracted, miss the pick up or the drop off and have to go around the block and try again. We need to be prepared to make mistakes. To make apologies. To ask forgiveness and to carry on knowing full well we're likely to do it again.

In the end, J found a suitable driveway in which to turn around and immediately came back. A huge smile, an apology, a shrug of the shoulders and the kids were returned to me. There were jokes about her keeping my kids but it was too late for that.

"I was distracted by the snow" she said.

Aren't we all?

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
 Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC

Forever at the Crossroads

A friend once told me the statistic that we now make more decisions in a single day than our grandparents did in their entire life. One day verses an entire lifetime.

Some decisions are mundane - do I have one egg or two for breakfast? Plus the a multitude of questions preceding it: Do I have breakfast this morning? If I have time for breakfast this morning? What should I have to eat? [ Insert 5 more breakfast related questions here... ]

Add in a couple kids, a spouse, and the family pet and the tally goes up.

Seems ridiculous - counting the number of decisions made in a given moment - and yet it explains so much.

Like why we don't have time for each other.

Why we don't make time for ourselves.

Why we don't take time for God.

Whether or not we ACTUALLY have the minutes available, our minds are so cluttered with question after question, choice after choice, decision, decision, decision... we box ourselves into a mental corner, so overwhelmed with the mountain of cascading choices that we fail to even begin.

At the same time, we forget - I forget - that we have the freedom to make choices. There's no jail time for skipping breakfast. No tickets for sending your kid to school with carrots instead of apples or skipping a work out at the gym. Not even a dirty look for spending Sunday morning at home instead of attending that little church down the road.

Meanwhile, there are people putting their lives on the line for God daily. They make a choice to stand up for their faith. They stand at a crossroad, some facing the barrel of a weapon, and have to choose - their faith or their life.

And we whine about whether the iPhone comes in a colour that matches our car.

Would a simpler life change things or merely a simpler heart?

The Hunt For ... Something

It's that void - you know the one I mean. That hole deep in one's being that seems to never be filled.

We try. Oh how we try.

Food, alcohol, sex, drugs, money...

Maybe it's this town. It's too small.

Maybe my spouse is the problem. Yes. That must be it. They must not be my soulmate.

It's this job. I'm not fulfilled here either. Not enough money in it. Yes. That's it. 

Let's try this...this...this...

We keep searching, trying, hunting for something to fill that void. That deep hole in our soul. We are thirsty. Our soul is thirsty.

Soul thirst.

Thirsty for something we struggle to fill with the things around us. Things the world tells us will "complete me".

A thirst only Grace can quench.