Just a little girl on the inside...: "Letting Go"

Nick and I have two cats, Boots and Oliver. They each have their own distinct personalities. Oliver is more aggressive, as he was with us first and is a little older. Boots is definitely more passive and inquisitive.

A few weeks ago our two cats went from being indoors to outdoors. Adapting to this was easy for Oliver. He can hold his own and surely knows how to fend for himself. Boots, however, hasn't been so successful.

This is Boots:

He's a cute little thing, isn't he? Nick gave him the name because we thought he resembled the little feline from Shrek. (Without having the same personality, of course.)

After placing the two of them in their new outdoor environment, Boots disappeared for a few days. I was convinced that someone may have seen him walking around, and Boots, wanting to make friends with everyone would have been taken. He showed up, but with a limp in his walk. I picked him up, examined the back leg which was a little swollen and decided that he was ok. Maybe he got his leg caught in something and twisted it.

He stayed around for the night, disappeared for most of the day, but he came home again so I picked him up and handed him to Nick so he could love on him.

This was the moment that Nick let out a scream and extended the cat back to me with a "His LEG MOM! Look at his LEG!!!" I examined the injured leg and noticed a gash the size of a half dollar. This discovery occurred at 11 o'clock at night. So I drove to Walmart, purchased the necessities needed to keep him inside and he's been there ever since.

I grew up on a farm, and seldom was a veterinarian called out for anything. My dad had a lot of knowledge and experience in regards to giving the animals vaccinations, stitching up wounds, and concocting home remedies for injured animals. I grew up knowing all too well what it meant to "put down" an animal and those images will stay with me for the rest of my life. So my mom and I poured saline on the wound, applied some bag balm (back in the day it was cow salve), and I crushed up an aspirin and mixed it in with some food.

The wound has healed wonderfully and Boots is beginning to walk on all fours once again. So now comes the struggle I have with placing him back in the outdoors which is where he needs to be.

I tried to coax him out by propping the door open and he took a few "baby steps" however as I approached him, he became skittish and ran back into the garage for cover.

So I convinced myself to give him one more day before I would have to use force...

I have thought about this scenario quite a bit as I have been having a hard time "letting him go."

There's something about the safety and security of being under the roof in your own home...

When you are sick, you want to be home.

When you are hurting, you want to be home.

When you are tired and weary, you want to be home.
When you are frustrated and sometimes angry, you want to be home.

When you've had a bad day, you want to be home.

Home is comfort. And serenity. And...safe.

And the outside world? It can be fun, and exciting, and adventurous. But it is also associated with being the place where danger lurks and the unpredictable lies.

Speaking for myself (it IS after all, my blog and my place for opinions), the outside world sometimes frightens me. I'm not necessarily talking about being out in nature, or walking down the streets of town, but rather "exposing" my heart and my soul to those things that can hurt me emotionally. Relationships. Relationships with peers, family members, and potential "dating" relationships.

I can't count the number of times I have asked myself this question...

Can I forgive this person and open up myself up to the possibility of being hurt by them again?

So how do we "let go?"

How do we convince ourselves fully, that life is going to be hard, that life is going to hurt, and that in life there are going to be letdowns?

How do we trust the Person that has opened the door to the outside world... the One who stands before us gently watching and waiting...

the One who extends His hand and says,

"Be strong and brave. Don't be afraid of them and don't be frightened, because the Lord your God will go with you.

He will never leave you or forget you."

-Deuteronomy 31:6

"He looked around the carpentry shop. He stood for a moment in the refuge of the little room that housed so many sweet memories. He balanced the hammer in his hand. He ran his fingers across the sharp teeth of the saw. He stroked the smoothly worn wood of the sawhorse. He had come to say goodbye.

It was time for him to leave. He had heard something that made him know it was time to go. So he came one last time to smell the sawdust and lumber.

Life was peaceful here. Life was so...safe...

I wonder if he wanted to stay...I wonder because I know he had already read the last chapter. He knew that the feet that would step out of the carpentry shop would not rest until they'd been pierced and placed on a Roman cross.

...if there was any hesitation on the part of his humanity, it was overcome by the compassion of his divinity. His divinity heard the voices...

And his divinity saw the faces...From the face of Adam to the face of the infant born somewhere in the world as you read these words, he saw them all.

And you can be sure of one thing. Among the voices that found their way into that carpentry shop in Nazareth was your voice...

And not only did he hear you, he saw you. He saw your face aglow the hour you first knew him. He saw your face in shame the hour you first fell. The same face that looked back at you from this morning's mirror, looked at him. And it was enough to kill him.

He left because of you.

He laid his security down with his hammer. He hung tranquility on the peg with his nail apron. He closed the window shutters on the sunshine of his youth and locked the door on the comfort and ease of anonymity.