Recently, one of my cousins on Matt's side of the family had to have her cat put to sleep. Her story brought to mind a story about my sisters and I when we were little...
When we first moved to Bloomington, we made friends with a couple girls in church and invited them over for a sleep-over. When we dropped them off in the morning, we noticed adorable little kittens running around their yard. They told us that we could have one if we wanted. So, after convincing my Mom, we picked out a small black kitten and took her home. We gave her the "creative" name of Charcoal.
The next day, we came home from church ready to play with our new pet...only to find that our neighbor's dog thought it would be fun to play with her too and had killed her! We were devastated!
My sisters and I took a shovel and the cat and went off to a neaby field to bury the cat. However, Tami being full of faith decided we should first pray that God would raise our cat from the dead. So, we knelt around the cat in the field and prayed that God would make our cat come back to life. We sat around the cat and cried and kept watching to see if it was breathing. Finally, I think I suggested we dig the hole to bury the cat (o ye of little faith!). We dug a hole and placed the cat inside. At this point, Tami was so sure that this cat was going to be resurrected, that she insisted we only bury the cat up to its neck so that when it did, it would at least be able to breath. So, we did. After awhile, I decided to go back to the house and tell my parents what was going on. I told them that Heidi and Tami were still sitting by the cat in the field waiting for it to start breathing. It was then, that my Dad said, "We need to get these kids another cat!"
That night we went and got two cats and named them Rachel and Leah. They had many children (just like their name-sakes) and eventually their was intermarrying and the cats went nuts and my Mom ended up leaving the last one at a dumpster behind a Taco Bell on Campus. Her thinking was, some nice college student would want the cat and until then, the cat could eat the food in the Taco Bell dumpster.
Anyway, this story makes me kind of marvel at our faith in prayer as kids. There are other stories throughout my childhood where God did miraculous things in answer to our prayers. Why is it that when we grow up we seem to become more immature in our faith? I've heard someone say before that when you have a need, get your kids involved in praying about it too because they will pray with so much more faith and confidence. No wonder Jesus wanted us to be like little children in our faith and belief. I want to have a faith that is completely illogical!
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:14)
As for the cat buried up to its neck. I went back several months later and found it's little skeleton. My ten year old brain thought...."hmm, Show and Tell at school!" ....but that's another story!
-rebekah
2 comments:
that story is really so funny...those were the crazy days!!! :) I wonder what people thought as they drove by and saw us three kneeling in a field with a cat buried up to it's neck, bawling our eyes out. that would be quite the sight.
That is SO funny!! Reminds me of when Dad buried our dog. We later realized that he did not dig a deep enough hole when the ground started moving over the grave days later...
Post a Comment