TGIF
She let me know that something hurt.
Miss Kitty had leaped into my lap (as was her custom after dinner)and I absent mindedly stroked her head while paying attention to my email.
My attention was diverted quickly back to the cat when she wrapped my hand up with her front paws and pressed into my arm with the back claws while almost biting me.
Almost…because she has learned not to bite or scratch me.
This was a warning and a statement… don’t do that again.
Don’t touch where it hurts.
Once I carefully extricated my finger from her open mouth, I wanted to inspect her to see where her head was afflicted.
Something had ripped the top of her ear, but when I tried to look closer she fled.
She didn’t want me to tend to her wound.
When she came back in the house she wanted me to ignore the injury and pretend it wasn’t there.
She would tend to her own wound and if I tried to minister to it she would threaten me and run.
Miss Kitty still does not understand that I have no desire to cause her further pain, but only to facilitate healing.
We’ve been through enough medical crises together that you would think she would.
I would help her if she would let me, but she would have to face the imaginary risks involved in trusting me with her pain.
Despite this, she sleeps soundly on my bed with a still mangled ear as I write this.
I don’t think this can heal on it’s own, though she hopes it will.
Miss Kitty reminds me a lot of me…and a lot of some of you.
We are navigating life with wounds unseen but real, and sometimes we even forget they exist until someone touches the spot where it hurts.
Then we react…often with anger, always just to protect ourselves.
We run away from the source that reminds us we are hurt and if we return we expect others to pretend there is no injury at all.
We do the same thing with God.
We try to hide our wounds from Him because we don’t trust Him to heal without hurting us more.
We could be healed if we would allow Him…but we won’t.
The risks are too great, or so we think.
We’ve been through enough together that you’d think we’d trust Him…especially because He has wounds of His own.
The wounds are not cat scratches, but nail marks received on our behalf.
We’re safe with them.
We can be healed by them.
We won’t heal on our own.
Perhaps it’s time to stop running and tell Him where it hurts…
Make your own application…
As my family and I grieve Drew’s death, we have become acutely more aware of the suffering others live with daily. There is so much hurt around us. Some have only revealed their pain since they know of ours–and trust us more so. Perhaps our posing that all is ‘fine’ is simply living dishonestly with each other and a denial of God’s healing presence.
Fil,
Well said and true…our prayers still are with you and yours, my friend.
Very good Michael, I whole heartedly agree. It is much easier to talk like we are fully trusting God in every area than to actually live that way.
fil – Glad to see you here. May the healing continue to flow in your life.
I sense some hurt – just don’t know what the source of the pain is.
Good reminder Michael, sometimes the old wounds though healed have the underlying pain. Though there’s not a visible injury One touched there’s that tenderness still.
Praying for you Fil.
I wonder if we could all see the invisible wounds we all carry each day if we would be more compassionate and empathetic toward others. We truly have no idea what a person has suffered in their life unless of course, they wish to share it with us. That’s why it’s such a foolish thing to judge others because there are so many things we don’t know about.
Fil, I am very sorry for your loss and you and your family are in my prayers.
i confess that i would love to have visited the land of the Bible… with a good teacher and a lot of time to ponder… the fact that there is an actual geographic location, actual dirt where the blood the the Lamb stained the ground – blessing and cursing meeting… i don’t know how our God views that stain – He has said that Able’s blood cried out to Him… no wonder this earth trembles from time to time
praying for the wounds, including Miss Kitty and for the sorrows, too… thank God for His comfort and also for the loving kindness of those who love Him