Fraidy Cat

I was vacuuming the house and had just pushed the cleaner into the bedroom when I heard a scuffle and saw a gray form streak across the bed.  I soon realized I had just experienced a close encounter with a “fraidy cat” who had been sleeping under the bed. Our family cat, who yowls and hisses down any feline threatening his territory, has two traumatic fears in his furry brain.  One is our toddler grandson coming through the door.  The other is a vacuum cleaner. That benign machine, which sucks up his constantly shedding fur, becomes to him a yowling monster.

 

As we laugh off his antics, we jokingly attribute them to his “deprived childhood.” He came to us as a kitten of about two or three months, rescued from a culvert at a park next to a hydroelectric dam. My husband and son had gone there one August 1^st to escape the blistering summer afternoon (while I sweated out cooking dinner at home). These men of my family have soft hearts, and hearing a weak “meow,” lured out the critter with chicken nuggets found in a sack in a nearby garbage can. At that time, many illegally dumped unwanted small animals in the park’s shrubs, leading to feral rabbits and cats. Nearby coyotes found the area a wonderful feeding station.

 The old movie title “Guess who’s coming to dinner” took on new meaning when my husband and son walked in at dinnertime with a wide-eyed, scrawny kitten wrapped in an old towel. He inhaled a saucer of milk and made a dent in another saucer of tuna.

 “If we keep him, he will be an ‘outside cat,’” my husband said, knowing my allergies to cats.  Famous last words.  He will soon start his fifteenth year with us, half of that as the “only child” (feline type) after our son and daughter grew up. Well into his senior “feline” years, he much prefers the inside of the house where he can keep an eye on his food dish.

As I pondered the life of Augie (so named for being found on August 1), I thought of the fears many of us pull out of the culverts of our lives. My 50^th high school reunion is coming up, and my adolescence isn’t really something I want to review. I did okay in high school. I was in the top ten academically and concertmistress of the high school orchestra. But I wasn’t into makeup and trendy clothes. And hair? My mom cut my hair while I sat on the rim of the bathtub. Beauty shop “cuts” didn’t fit in the family budget. One of my favorite classes was trigonometry, where we were seated alphabetically and which put me right in front of (be still my soul) the student-body president. But I didn’t date or go to dances. My friends came out of a core of similarly down-to-earth teens who were a part of “Horizon Club,” the teen version of Camp Fire.

As for the fear of “not fitting in”—oh, the adolescent mind. Oh, the adolescent bullies. One time on a crowded stairwell between classes, I felt someone poking into my back. When I arrived in English class, someone pulled a paper with an uncomplimentary name off my back. Did that ruin me for life? Of course not. The bullies were the ones “not fitting in.” As I grew up, God prepared the experiences that helped me learn to relate to people and stand out above the conforming crowd. High school was, well, high school.  I left that way behind.

Most of us have learned the old King James version of 2 Timothy 1:7:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
That verse comes out of Paul’s last preserved letter to Timothy. The old apostle knew his own death was likely not far away. He was urging the young pastor to be a confident, bold Christian leader. And so it is for us. God is greater than any fear based on a long-ago event. He changes us as we walk in faith with Him, with the purpose of bringing glory to Him. We often quote that verse to someone who, as a chronically worried and anxious adult, needs the gentle reminder that such behavior doesn’t honor God.

When we behave like “fraidy cats,” unwilling to face down what we perceive to be a threat, we’re forgetting the principle just a few verses later: “God…has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9).

Grace thanks the noisy vacuum cleaner, and Purpose rubs up against the toddler.