Slick

From the book Speechless, written by Lisa Hoffmann (aka Alabastersky)

He was all black and reminded me of an oil slick. Completely feral, he never allowed us to come near without hissing or running away. We sometimes heard him howling late at night and fighting with other neighborhood cats, but other than put food out for him there just didn’t seem like much we could do.

Even summer nights in Colorado can sometimes be very cool, so as the days grew shorter and the nights got colder, we took an igloo-shaped dog house and lined the inside with fleece and old blankets, hoping to offer him additional shelter if he needed it.  I was pleased to see him use it now and then, although I never tried to catch him in it for fear he would attack.

There came a time one winter when we had not seen him around for days. This was unusual, mostly because of the volume of food he became dependent on us to give him on a daily basis. This cat could eat A LOT, which was our first clue that he was not in good health.

Eventually I put on some long gloves and mustered the courage to get on my hands and knees and peek inside the igloo.  Sure enough, he was in it, but he wasn’t moving at all.  We decided to bring him inside. Cautiously and gently we spilled him out onto the floor. My heart broke when I saw he had been mauled by some other animal and had been bleeding badly across his chest and legs, his eyes screaming that he was in pain!

We took him to our veterinary clinic to see what they could do.  After a quick exam, their recommendation was to put him down.  He was very wild and as it turned out, had diabetes (which explained a lot), and now had been badly mauled.  The doctor did say, however, that if we were willing, then he could try to operate and repair the damage.  Twelve-hundred dollars later (and one scared technician who was afraid of being bitten), we were allowed to take him home.

Oh me, what to do now? We already had more than one cat in a very small townhome and we had no idea how we were going to make the situation work. With the need to keep him separate from our other cats, we made the decision that he would stay in the spare bedroom we used as an office.

One thing I discovered very quickly, this feral cat apparently didn’t have an instinctive understanding of what a litter box was for!  UGH!!  I remember lining the floor with wee pads in hopes he would use one of them instead of the carpet. And then it happened… Slick had a very loose stool and decided that the carpeted spot right in front of the door, where there was no wee pad, was the optimal place to deposit it.  UGH AGAIN because when I later opened the door, everything he had deposited got swiped across the carpet like peanut butter onto a piece of bread! Let’s just say that was one of the times when I was not very careful to mind what came out of my mouth. I wish I could tell you it was the one and only time he chose that spot, but it wasn’t. Between the potty training and the pill giving, we had our hands full.

In case anyone is calculating and weighing out cost versus worthiness, you might be inclined to think Slick just received his third strike. But in spite of our frustration with his many failures, we kept on loving and caring for him.  What happened as a result was that Slick turned out to be one of the most grateful and loving cats we ever had the pleasure of caring for. He used to sit on my chest and lovingly look into my eyes whenever I would pet him. And (I kid you not, of all things) just as if he was a child, his absolute favorite thing to do was to sit beneath where we had placed a radio and listen to Focus on the Family: Adventures in Odyssey! Every Saturday morning he got into position whenever it was time for that program to begin, where he sat and stared at the radio until we turned it on.

The lessons I learned from my feral cat were immense. Slick had no idea that he even wanted the life of a pampered kitty. There was no desire there for that because there was no intimate knowledge for him prior that such a thing even existed.  His wild, hard life was the only life he knew.

It was a glaring reminder that those who say they want nothing to do with God say that only because they have never had a personal encounter with Him. None of us have the concept of what life was created and designed by God to be apart from the Holy Spirit revealing that need and desire within us.

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Ephesians 1:17-18

Simply put, Slick taught me that life is worth redeeming. Contending for the greatness of God within others is always worth the cost.  Job learned this when, at the end of all his struggles, he prays for his friends:

And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. – Job 42:10

All of us can partner with God in prayer and loving actions for those who have been mangled by this life. You’ll be amazed as you pray for desires for Him to increase in others how much your own desire and hunger increases for Him as well.