So the cat comes home and he lives outside and spends nights in our garage. His time actually in our home is limited to meal times and little else.
The cat has begun to grow on me I must admit. We've had issues with chipmunks digging under our home and crawl space area and tearing up our air ducts to make their home. This cat has caught three chipmunks that we know of. Chalk that up in the plus column for the critter.
The cat comes in during watching football on Saturday or Sunday evenings and jumps up in my lap purring. Now he could choose anyone but he seems to want to choose me for some unknown reason.
So--here is this independent cat with a mind of his own, that I don't really care for--but he's in our lives and I never would think the cat would teach me an important lesson.
Last Saturday I had to mow the lawn, nothing new there. I had cleaned out some of the garage and placed a department store shopping bag and filled it with some smaller boxes and placed it near the trash can on the side of the house. As I was mowing I noticed small boxes strewn about the yard on the opposite side of the house. I thought-that is strange--now who was into those boxes and started throwing them around? I went inside after cleaning them up again and asked my wife and both of my daughters...but no--they had no idea what I was talking about. So I chalked it up to the neighbor kids exploring and playing around and finished the lawn.
That night the cat did not return home for dinner...or to hang out. I went on a walk...continued our normal evening...and then started shutting the lights out for the night and locking up...only 1 thing left to do, put the cat into the garage for the evening.
I put my sneakers back on and started searching and calling. He wasn't perched on top of my car...wasn't laying in the flower beds....wasn't up in the trees...all his usual spots. I went back inside and found a flashlight to help me in the search.
As I surveyed the culdesac and the light pierced into the darkness I stumbled around searching and flashing the light. I called out searching and searching...just about ready to give up I resigned myself he was out of luck for the night. The temperatures were dropping and it was in the high 30's....cold for Tennessee for an early fall evening--and I was concerned for that critter.
I slowly turned back towards the home and silently turned the light off and proceeded into the darkness when I heard a tiny meowish call...faint and in the distance. I quickly turned the light back on--where are you Tommy? I quieted myself and listened for that tiny voice...so faint. Where is he? It was almost like he was behind me back toward the house. I wheeled and took a short step and then another...another faint call but sounding ever closer.
I stopped and suddenly I realized...the cat was down in the sewer calling up faintly. How did he get there? How will I get him out? I flashed the light down and couldn't see him, there was debris and leaves all over him. It was just a pile of trash with a voice calling out.
I ran back through the back yard to the end of the drain tunnel and surveyed my options. I called up the tunnel to him but he wasn't moving and I couldn't fit to climb in and go 100 ft to reach him.
I went back and in desperation tugged at the two grates covering the sewer drain. Amazing that one side was not welded closed so I pulled and managed to get some separation and eventually got my fingers under it enough to pull it up.
Now what? He still wasn't jumping out...so I jumped down into the slop and mess and reached carefully under the other side and pulled out a pile of trash, leaves, boxes and a torn shopping bag.
I suddenly realized what had happened...the cat was exploring on the side of the house, had somehow put his head through the handle of the shopping bag and when realized he was stuck and trapped started darting about flinging boxes and running in circles before running up the one way drain pipe and hitting a dead end in the sewer in a pile of debris and leaves and muck. Finally realizing he could no longer get himself out-but that he needed intervention he was powerless to do anything for himself.
I learned a powerful reminder of a lesson that night. I have searched around and found trouble in my own life---then thrashing about looking for a way out but only getting wrapped up more in a mess. Finally in desperation hitting the end of that tunnel and finding myself in a pile of muck, debris and feeling helpless---needing divine intervention and something more than I could do for myself.
I find that most of us want to believe we can handle anything and everything in our lives---and in fact our American culture celebrates those of us who can suck it up, strap it up a notch tighter and pull ourselves up from the bootstraps and make things happen--as a loner.
Sometimes the most beautiful thing is when we get to the end of ourselves, our own determination and power..we find a big God who reaches down and improbably removes the immovable object, jumps into the gutter and pulls us out of the debris and garbage and sets our feet back back on the solid ground. At that moment the guilt and the shame and our own foolishness can melt away--because we were not pulled out to lie around or jump back into the garbage.
We were saved for a purpose--and each of our lives tell a story. Try as we might to invent a message that our lives tell--they naturally tell a story all on their own. I was given a story--not all tangled up--but a story of HOPE. No matter what I do now that theme shines through. As you think about your own life in the quiet at the beginning or end of your day--think consciously about the theme your own story is telling.
As Don Miller said
“And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
If you don't like the story your life is telling...make a change while there is time. The ending has yet to be written---what an awesome thought!
