Driveway Cat

My neighbor has an old, old cat, named DC for Driveway Cat, because he's always laid in the middle of the driveway expecting every car to drive around him.  He's mangy looking, missing most the fur from his neck, skin full of gross bumps and warts, hunched over like an old man.  A couple weeks ago, DC adopted me.  The middle of my driveway became his right-of-way.  The rocker in my gazebo became his.  And my front door often showcased DC's mangy old face peering in at me, with his meow music reverberating off the porch and crunching through the glass.  After a couple futile tries of returning him to the neighbor's, and the old cat meandering back across the busy road to re-establish his domain, my neighbor simply brought DC's food supply and deposited it on my front porch.

I've never been exactly a cat lover.  And DC, well....he doesn't make loving cats easy.  In addition to his "less than lovely" appearance, he constantly talks, with a loud, long, twangy m-e-o-w.  He about drove a repairman crazy yesterday.

But little by little, DC is kind of working his way into my heart.  Maybe a little.

I was thinking, we're kind of like DC - covered with all kinds of gross warts of sin, getting old and ugly....
Yakking away, constantly complaining.  Two seconds after God blesses us, whining for another.

But God loves us.....still.   And not "a little."  Enough to lay down on a cross and die for us.  Knowing all we would become.  Knowing all the self in us.  Cognizant of each "ugly", all down through the years.

And unlike me with DC, He is always there for us... on time, all the time. 

Lord, you don't see our ugliness.  Our warts are all covered over forever.... by Your own blood.  You see each one of us as part of the beautiful bride of Christ, adorned in a robe of pure white, betrothed to the Holy One - the Ancient of Days.  Oh Jesus....THANK YOU!!!  

"For God so loved the world....."

(published June 2018 in More Than Survivors)

AND GOD REMEMBERED

In the days of Noah, when the earth was only 1,656 years old (around 2347 BC), the fountains of the great deep broke up and burst forth in great geysers of water raining back down upon the earth.  The windows and floodgates of heaven were opened.  And for 40 days the earth was deluged with water and catastrophic trauma, until all flesh that moved on the earth ceased to breathe, and all birds of the heavens perished.  Only Noah and all in the ark remained alive.  Genesis 7:11-23

However, Genesis 8:1 tells us:  "But God REMEMBERED Noah and all...with him in the Ark..." (NASB).  The Hebrew word for remembered is zaw kar' and means "to be mindful of, to express concern, to act with loving care".  Noah was not "forgotten" and then "remembered", as we would think.  Rather, he was ALWAYS in God's thoughts.  Listen to what His Word says about those who are His.....

 "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are blameless toward Him..."  II Chronicles 16:9a, Amplified.

"Fear not, for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you..."  Isaiah 41:10, Amplified

"...for He Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support.  Not.  Not.  Not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down [nor] relax my hold on you!  So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be seized with alarm'...".  Hebrews 13:5b, 6, Amplified

A little over four weeks ago, my grandson, Gabe, was in a terrible collision, where the car he was driving went partway underneath a steel panel truck and had to be cut apart with the jaws of life to free Gabe to be flown to emergency care.  But God had not forgotten Gabe.  Rather, He had placed His hand at just the right time, in just the right place, to angle Gabe's car in just the right way, to keep it from going any further under the panel truck.  Otherwise, Gabe would have lost his life or been severely brain injured.

In our own collision, God did not stop my husband's severe TBI, but still, He had not turned His eyes away from Steven.  Rather, He kept both of us alive, and capable, equipped, and strengthened to do the exact Kingdom work, in His time, that He had ordained for us.  And He carried us, through the collision aftermath and all the years following.  Likewise with each of you.  God REMEMBERS you.

Five weeks ago, a Menzi Muck operator was almost finished removing the blockage in our drainage outflow ditch (through a special exemption from governing environmental officials).  The operator, however, needed an immediate change in the exemption plan, for the imminent safety of both the operator and the machine - requiring an exit that had previously been expressly forbidden by the environmental officials.  In God's absolutely perfect timing, a senator's staff just "happened" to call while I was on the phone with the operator and the landowner, to see if help was needed with getting an exemption for the blockage.  Not having time to even take the call, I emailed the situation back to the senator's staff.  By the time I reached the appropriate environmental official, the senator's legal staff had already talked to the head of the environmental agency, and orders were coming down to the official who needed to give the ok!  God's eyes were on the situation.  He "remembered".   His timing was perfect, to the second.

Lord, open our eyes to SEE that when we are afraid and think we are forgotten and forsaken, we are still "remembered" by the One Who loves us so much.  For, even before we were born, Your eyes saw us down through the ages, Your thoughts "were mindful of" our sin, and You "acted with loving care" to choose to hang on that cross, that Your atoning blood might be poured over the alter of sacrifice...for us.   

(published May 2018 in More Than Survivors)