A Cat Tale

My cat is a nut.

I don't mean Oscar.  Other than his attempts to climb inside Kleenex boxes and his need to lick windows, he's a pretty laid back guy, his long orange fur making a kingly ruff around his get-me-some-food-you-lesser-being face.

I'm talking about Elroy, the white one with big brown and black spots. 

He's a snuggler, but he's got a very specific snuggling style.  No lap cat is he.  When at last, at the end of a long day, I sit down for a few moments' relaxation, I am instantly the recipient of an enthusiastic cat hug. 

Elroy is persistently vertical.  He's never once curled on a lap in proper cat fashion.  Instead, he hops onto my legs and promptly reaches up until his front legs are wrapped around my neck and his head is tucked against my jaw bone.  Then he purrs like a lawnmower and deliriously rubs his head against my chin.  Finally he settles in, cozy against my shoulder while I work, his hind legs tucked up in the crook of my arm.

I've learned to work around him, peering over his head at the monitor of my laptop and hoping for the best as I blindly peck at the keys, one arm bent at an odd angle to hold him up in his peculiar neck-hugging position.

The really impressive part about the whole thing is how sneaky he is, and how relentlessly determined.  When that cat wants his snuggle time, he does not take no for an answer.

I can only handle being blanketed by cat for so long.  Eventually I give his head a final snuzzle and then scoop him up and pop him onto the floor.  He's never happy about that and stalks about indignantly for a few minutes, radiating his disappointment in me.  But before long he's circling my chair, looking for an opportunity to try again.  I'll see two bright eyes peeping at me from near my elbow, and then suddenly in a flash of fur I'll have my warm neck wrap back in place.

Again I'll peel him off, and again he'll circle and pounce.  Sometimes he tries a rear attack, leaping with silent paws onto the chair behind my head and sliding down into position when I'm not looking.  Other times I can see him coming from one side and ward him off with an extended hand only to discover him springing up from the other side a moment later and scuttling into place.

The cat is so good at his stealth maneuvers that often I will be humming along at my work and then look down and realize that I've got company on my shoulder, unaware of when he arrived or how long I've been holding him.

Over and over it goes - I remove the cat, and the cat returns.  And with each success his purrs grow louder.

Persistence.  Relentless determination.  And the heartfelt desire to be close me.  The cat may be a nut, but he sure does make me feel loved.

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Sometimes it's hard to believe in love.  I don't know how to trust in it.  I want to believe that I'm treasured, wanted for who I am, but I know who I am, and I know that that which lies within me is no treasure.  I cannot trust that love that is offered could truly be meant for me.

But when it is offered again, and again, when I am given reassurance after reassurance that it is real, when the persistence of the giver is greater than my determination to not trust...then, oh the joy is it to fall into belief and to know what it is to truly feel that I am truly loved.

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My nutty cat is the very definition of persistence.  And yet he doesn't hold a candle (which is, perhaps, a poor metaphor, given that cats don't have thumbs, but you know what I mean) to our persistent, relentless, determined, utterly stubborn God.

Again and again He murmurs in His Word, oh you silly child, I love you so.  Again and again He forgives our foolishness, looks past our failures, wipes our tears.  Though we push Him away again and again, time after time He comes to us, comforting and caring and wanting to be held close in our hearts.

Sometimes I see Him coming and I hold Him off with a hand, unwilling to accept His kind of acceptance.  But sometimes, in the middle of the messiness of the busiest of days, I look up and discover that there He is, tucked in close, right where I need Him to be. 

Persistence.  Relentless determination. And the heartfelt desire to be close to me...unworthy, undeserving me.  What a nutty God we have.  He sure does make me feel loved.

Originally published in The Alpena News, November 15, 2014