Shedding…

Our cat is shedding…

“What’s new about that ?” you ask…

Don’t all cats shed?

Yes…

But not like this cat…

She is shedding in a pattern…

Could it be… feline pattern baldness?

She’s losing so much hair on her abdomen that you can see the skin

We take her to the vet.

“This could be serious,” he says.

He gives us a bottle of very large pills…

And a very large bill.

“Give her two of these a day for a week.”

Right.

Get a cat to swallow two large pills.

Every day.

Before long, the cat runs from us when she sees a pill in our hands

Somehow, a week later, the pills are gone.

But she’s still losing hair.

My wife and I leave for a short vacation.

We’ll take her to the vet when we get back.

My mother will stay with our daughter… and the cat.

When we return…

A miracle!

The cat’s hair is growing back.

Maybe, we think, the pills took a while to work.

Two days later…

The cat is losing hair again.

I watch as she struggles through the cat door to the basement for her food.

Her formerly skinny kitty body scrapes against the rough edges of the cat door.

My mother watches, too.

“It’s too hard for her to get through that tiny little door, she says.

“So, I just leave the whole basement door open.”

The mystery of the disappearing cat fur?

Solved.

The cause?

Not some dread disease…

She was being shaped by the world in which she lives

Shaped by what she rubbed up against in her daily life.

How often am I shaped by the world in which I live?

How often do I look for a complicated solution…

Forgetting that God has freely given the prescription I need…

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God   may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:16-17

Forgetting that he calls on us to act…

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:2

That He calls on us to act in gratitude for what He has already done…

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16