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)