The geriatric cat, Indy, pads purposefully past the prayer
window. She doesn’t notice me, but I know she is looking for a way back into
the house.
Briefly, she pauses at the front window, then reappears,
circling back towards the back door. Her old ears have lost their acuity, and
often she fails to respond when we stand at the open door and call her name
repeatedly.
This morning, Don went outside, trailed behind her, calling
her name, accompanied by that ‘psst psst’ which he considers his private
language with his cat – but which, I am pretty sure, she never hears anymore. With
delight (I imagine), Indy saw him coming and sped up to follow him back into
the house.
I came across some old diaries in my tidying the other day,
and was surprised to read an entry from 1974 where I poured out my spiritual
thirst and talked about a few of the wrong houses I was prowling around in my
quest for truth. In amongst the spiritual theories I had, Jesus came out on
top, though it was my own limited understanding of who he is. There I was,
prowling around ‘heaven’, searching for a way in, and deaf to the calls of my
Saviour.
More than that, as I looked for a way ‘in’ to spiritual
truth, Truth stood at the door of my deaf heart and knocked, waiting for me to
invite him in.
And when I finally did, in 1979, he came in power and love
and mercy and peace.
For years I was deaf to his ‘psst psst’ and his gentle
calling of my name. Just like the story Jesus told, of the shepherd who leaves
the 99 to go to find the one which is lost, he came for me himself, depositing
his Holy Spirit as a foretaste of eternal life and a counsellor and enabler in
this present world.
This lost sheep has been brought home.
Praise God.
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