Only Trust Him

Only Trust Him
Peggy Mack
October 24, 2013

This morning my friend, Gordy, posted a photo of a drenched cat looking through a window from his soaked perch outside in the storm.  He was definitely insulted and not a happy cat.  That photograph stirred an almost forgotten memory of our family cat, Meenow while I was living in Panama City.  Florida is infamous for showers that strike in the summer with a deluge of drenching rain that borders on the description of a tropical storm.  On one occasion, our family bronze and tan tabby warrior cat was prowling his territory in our backyard looking to conquer an irritating squirrel or screeching blue jay.  Those were his favorite gifts to deliver to my kitchen back door or rarely, but on more than one occasion, delivered through the pet door and placed in front of my refrigerator. 

On this morning, the storm came from out of nowhere and came crashing with numerous bolts of lightning.  One of those close jolts struck one of the trees in our backyard sending Meenow into a panic and skittering up a forty-foot pine tree.  When I heard it, I ran to the back kitchen door to let him inside but it was too late.  There he sat on a short branch getting soaked horribly.  All the while he was letting out this forlorn moan, Rowwwrrrr....Rowrrrrrr.  It was a moaning gutteral sound which I had never heard coming from him before.  I turned on the television to hear that the "front" was bringing forty mile an hour winds and a drenching rain.  I really saw no way for him to survive and made the decision to call the fire dept.  As I apologized for the call, I begged for some help.  There was a long pause and then a response, "Lady, get a life. We're taking care of life threatening situations right now."  Click.  The phone call was over. 

So I held vigil from my kitchen window and I cried and I prayed and I hoped the branch would not break and send him tumbling to the ground.  He was twelve at the time and had suffered pnuemonia the summer before so I did not know what this would do to him.  As the rain began to slow and the winds began to ease thirty minutes later, Meenow took a risk and attempted to bring himself down.  As he swung over to the trunk, pieces of the pine bark gave way and he lost his grip with his claws.  He slid, he scrambled, he hit one branch and finally he landed on all fours and ran for the garage door I had left open for him.  He ran past me and upstairs to be left alone.  When I found him, he begrudgingly allowed me to dry him off and offer him a favorite treat.  With that he found a quiet place in a favorite chair and slept.

Thinking of Meenow today, I equated it with a time when I sat in a waiting room at 11pm while my mother was in with two doctors who were treating her for blood clots that had formed in her legs.  We had arrived at the hospital at 6pm after she fell to the floor and could not walk. She was not injured by the fall but was now fighting for her life.   One of the doctors came to tell me that he and a partner were literally working to destroy each blood clot but there were, in his words, an endless amount and IF they could not get them under control, they would face the decision of amputating both of her legs. 

Oh God!  There I was at 11pm in a lonely dark waiting room with no one around for miles, it seemed.  Mother and I had been walking through one medical trauma after another and now she was facing the loss of both of her legs.  Devastated?  Yes, I was devastated!  I may not have let out that God forsaken sound that Meenow was making but I felt that sense of total fear and a loss of an idea how to get out of this mess.  I can remember thinking, "Where are you, God?  How much longer is this going to go on?  How can YOU keep giving her one medical trauma after another? "  And then finally, I gave up.  I can remember saying to myself, "I give up.  I cannot do this."  The hours dragged and I sat all alone in a mostly dark room, hungry, tired, alone and defeated.  I would not even begin to think about how I was going to take on more than I already had on my shoulders. 

And now, she was in a life threatening trauma that might take both her legs at once.  So I sat, in the dark, silent and numb with tears streaming.  At 3 am, the doctor came out and announced, we are 99% convinced that we have all of them and that her legs will be safe.  I hugged him for going far beyond what anyone can expect of a physician.  She was being transferred to ICU and because no visitors were allowed until 10 am he ordered me to go home.   In two days, she returned to our home to continue her many medical battles, but God touched two doctors that evening and God got me through the night when I had nothing left in me.

In my readings yesterday I found a very healing passage for me.  It said something similar to this.  Faith is the willingness of our minds in good times to believe in God as our creator and Christ as our Savior.  Trust is our ability to believe in God's willingness to get us through when we cannot hear His voice and no longer can put one foot forward on our own.  Faith walks in good times involve a conscious effort to live our lives in love and peace choosing to lift others up and support them in their lives.  Trust is surrendering under the pain and stress of life believing that God is in the storm with us.  He weeps when we weep.  He feels our pain and heartache and fear.  In the storm when things are crashing around us and things are happening so quickly all we can do is go numb, we must understand that we may not hear His voice.  We may not see those who God is guiding to protect us and get us through, but trust that He provides them.   Only when we are at a place of rest can we look back and take time to acknowledge that God has placed somewhere near us to carry us through the storm.   In those storms we may be numb and lost.  We may feel all energy drain from our minds and bodies.  We are asked to do one thing.  Let go and trust God.

Dear Heavenly Father,
I have not thanked you for the night that you held me in your arms in a lonely, dark, hospital waiting room.  I am filled with gratitude for your presence in the minds, hearts and hands of those two surgeons.  I am filled with gratitude beyond measure.  Loving you involves so little on our part.  You ask us to have faith and to trust you.  In return, we never walk alone and are blessed with your loving grace.
In Jesus' Name,
Amen


 Deuteronomy 1:30-33

30 The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, 31 and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place." 32 In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, 33 who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.