I have a cat, almost two years old, and she's pretty much the light of my life, the reason I was so happy all the time, and I was a bit overpossessive of her. I'd gain a huge chunk of pride everytime someone said, "wow, she's so pretty!" or "she is so cute!"
And I'd constantly have to know where she was. If she was sleeping, of course, I'd leave her alone, but I had to know WHERE she was sleeping. Yesterday, I was up in my room all day, playing nintendo or something, and I came down, and I remembered I hadn't seen my cat all day. This was kind of weird, because she was kind of like me, she always had to know where I was too, so I would have thought she would have come and found me.
Well, I went outside to look for her last night, and not a single clue came to me. So, I started talking to God, begging Him to please, please show me where she had gone, but then I thought, 'This isn't right. God loves me, and wants me to be so happy, so why is He hiding her from me?' So then I remembered what my dad had said about "Giving it all up". It was so unbelievably hard to give her up to Him, to let Him do His will, no matter the cost for me, but I managed it. I sat out on the back porch and sang songs to myself, reminding me WHY I gave it all up to Him, and why it would help.
After that, I retreated up to my room and cried, because I was so scared that God would let her die or get lost somewhere, and I'd never see her again. And I heard my mom and my sisters calling for her outside, but she still didn't come.
Then, after I had completely concluded that I didn't mind whatever God wanted to do with her and was ready to fall asleep, my little sister came up to my room and told me my mom had found her, and she was in the garage. I was immediately up and going out the door when she said that...
We looked for her for a long while in the garage, and I was starting to think she wasn't even in there, until I heard her meow very, very softly. Then we looked even harder, but with no success. After that my sister and I waited on the porch for her, and just when my sister told me we should go back inside (it was very cold), I suddenly had the urge to go look again. So we did, and I heard her moving. So, I asked my little sister to get me a bowl of food, and when she did, I started moving the food around and waiting for her to come, and then I suddenly saw her watching me. I tried so hard to get her to come eat the food (I was sure she was very hungry) and she ended up eating a little bit of it that I tossed to her, but then she climbed back up between huge piles of stuff, stuff that I couldn't even get to.
Well, after that, as bad as it sounds, I was a little dissappointed in God. I was sure he was going to give her back to me, but when He saw how I hadn't really given her up completely, He took her away again. This morning I went out to look for her again, and still no success.
I hadn't planned on going to church today, but my sister came in and told me something that has been ringing through my ears all day today. She said, "God can't give her back to you unless you let her go."
The realization of that hit me very hard, and I begged God not to be mad at me and to forgive me. I had been so wrong to just suddenly turn on Him and say, "No! You can't have your will now that I can see my cat." It was so, so wrong of me, and still bothers me right now. I thought of the example of a tug-of-war match, where I was pulling on one end and God was holding on to the other. I had to let go of my end before God could completely take it into his hands and give it back to me.
Today, in church, the pastor prayed for us to cast all our cares on Him, to give up everything and come to the cross, and I really believe his prayer helped me today. Because now, I have completely given up Mystie, and I've concluded that God can do whatever he wants with her.
We still haven't found her yet, but even if we don't, I'll still praise him. It's like in the movie, "Facing the Giants", where they say, "If we win, we'll praise Him. And if we lose, we'll praise Him."
It doesn't matter what happens, I have to give Him what He wants and deserves for being so great a God.
I hope my story maybe helped you in something you're going through in your life, or maybe someone you know, or maybe it just reminded you of how great our Father really is. Either way, I really wanted to share this with someone, and I appreciate you taking the time to read it.
I'm sorry it was so long, but I'm loquacious and I had to say everything on my heart.
and wow...that would be so scary! I bet you were very relieved when you found out it was JUST a sprain...
