The tiny kitten I found in the ditch beside a gravel road on the first Sunday of June last year is no longer a kitten. Ginger is now full-grown. Well, at least physically. The orange tabby weighs nearly twenty pounds. She’s an indoor/outdoor cat who loves spending time down at the barn but often wants to come inside to use the litter box. Thirty-eight tons of sand in the round pen and she wants to come inside to relieve herself!

I think she knows that cat litter by the box is much more expensive than sand by the truckload. Of course, I believe that all domesticated animals conspire to maximize the expenses of their owners, even going to the point of deliberately contracting various diseases for the primary, even sole purpose of making us spend money on them.

I’m convinced they have bragging sessions. In fact, that’s probably the sole reason they traverse to distant yards and corners of pastures, simply to brag about how much money we have to spend on them.

The cat, of course, starts the contest. “Oh, my master had to take me to the vet; I cost him over seventy-five dollars.”

“Hah, that’s nothing!” snorts the horse. “I’m too big to take to the vet. The vet has to come to me.” Then with an assertive tossing of the head, “That’s at least another hundred bucks, just for the travel. Plus the meds.”

Well, enough of the Wall Street syndrome. Back to the cat.

I thought that in her appreciation for my rescue, she would be a devoted lap friend. I thought she would surely delight in snuggling up with her rescuer. It hasn’t quite turned out that way.

Her usual response to any attempt at petting is to bite my hand. Unless, of course, she already snagged me with a quick swipe of her paw as I was reaching toward her. I don’t even try to pick her up unless I’m wearing welding gloves, a face shield and Kevlar. She clearly does not understand the obligations of the redeemed.

In that regard, she’s not as different from me as I would like to believe. Smitten with honesty, I suppose I would have to admit there’s been a time or two when I have arched my back and hissed at God.

And yet, he still loves me, still waits for his grace to have its full work within me.

H. Arnett
2/9/12