Hey guys welcome back to the PSALMS to God podcast! So, I know that today I was planning to do another "High School Yearbook Superlatives" episode, where we talk about a particular person—and I had a kind of planned it out and decided what I was going to talk about, but one thing led to another and some things happened, and then the Holy Spirit moved me to talk about something else. So, when the Holy Spirit moves you to talk about something else, you start talking about something else.

This past weekend was an interesting experience, and because of that interesting experience, I ended up staying up all night Friday night with a sick cat. About, I don't know, 3:30, quarter to 4, in the morning, the Holy Spirit just kind of started giving me things to to talk about, and so I just turned on the recording software on my computer and started to record. And what was left is I guess what I want to give you today. Unfortunately because it was 3 something in the morning and I was really just recording to get my thoughts down, I didn't necessarily think that that was going to be the episode for today. So I just wanted to record what I was thinking, I didn't really hook up the mic or anything like that. So, I apologize if the sound quality is not, you know, the best quality ever. But I just felt like it wasn't worth re-recording, because I just felt like it was real in the moment that I recorded it. So this is what I had to say at a quarter to 4 in the morning, Saturday morning…

If you've been listening to my episodes then you probably remember in one episode there is like a weird sound—actually in a couple episodes there may be a sound like bells or jingling in the background or something, or like the rustling of something or just like a sudden thud. And usually it's my cat, Bubbles. I don't lock her out of the room when I record, because I know that will make her upset and then she's just going to stand at the door and whine; then you'll probably hear her whining in the background. So, I just let her come and go as I record the episodes. Sometimes she sits there quietly and sometimes she doesn't. But I've had Bubbles for 8 years—it'll be 9 years in May—and when I first got her, she was so tiny! You guys, she weighed less than a pound. She weighed, I think, something like 9 oz—she could fit in the palm of my hand.

Recently, there was a day that I was very sick, and I decided to take like a hot bath to ease like the cramps and stuff. And when I got out of the bathtub, I wasn't able to drain the tub because I was sick. So, I just kind of crawled from the bathtub into my bed, and during this time, her being the curious little cat she was, she ended up falling into the tub because she didn't expect there to be water in the tub. And because I was also sick, I had a hard time trying to dry her and like, brush her and all these things. I didn't do the best job of grooming her after she fell into the tub.

So, after a couple of weeks passed—it's been about a month since this happened—I noticed that she started to get a lot of matting in her fur, and I think it may be be from the poor grooming job I did after she fell in the bathtub. So I've been having a lot of trouble getting the mats out of her fur the past couple of weeks. Now, you know it's to the point that she doesn't want me to brush her, because it hurts. So I called a groomer and they referred me to another groomer, and they referred me to a vet, blah blah blah...[4] Basically people kind of passed me around in circles, until I found out who was willing to basically shave off her fur, so that it can grow back healthy and not cause problems. Just for an FYI, when cats fur mats, it mats really close to their skin and it's not good for them, because one, they will try to groom it and go into overgrooming,[5] and two, it irritates their skin. It can cause like tears in their skin and infections, and things like that. So I just really wanted her to go back to being normal. So I made a vet appointment to get this done for this past Friday, and as I was preparing for it, I had to find my records. I haven't found a vet since I moved into this new location. I'd gotten her like a three-year rabies vaccination so she didn't need to go to the vet all this time, and so I hadn't really worried about it.

Well, it turns out, her rabies shot was actually expired. It expired last like September or November—sometime late 2018. So, when I talked to them, they said they would give her a new rabies vaccine as well, because you just don't like working on animals who don't have their vaccinations up to date. It's probably not good for the vet or whatever. So, I took her to the vet Friday afternoon, and there was a mix-up with the person at the desk. They didn't really understand the process for the grooming situation, and everything it would take. Basically they would have to sedate her, because she's not going to like it, and in order to to get her to cooperate, she needs to be calm and asleep, and not fighting. So they couldn't sedate her that late in the afternoon because they have to do blood work, they have to monitor the cat and make sure their OK; it's just a lot of things into it. So, they told me they could give me rabies the shot and that I would have to bring her back for the grooming situation. You know, and they were like we'll give you a discount and we won't charge you for the second office visit because it was their fault, yada yada yada. So I was like "OK, fine.”

So, I got her rabies shot, and I brought her home. And within—I don't know—maybe 5 to 10 minutes of me getting her home, she threw up. And then she kept throwing up, and she threw up, I don't know, maybe five times within like 30 minutes—30 minutes to an hour—of me getting her home, and that's not normal. Like I said, I've had her for almost 9 years; I've had pets all my life. I have never ever seen an animal react like that to a rabies shot. So I was freaking out. She wasn't acting like herself, and I haven't seen her like that since she was a tiny kitten. It was very different, because when she was a tiny kitten I had never seen her personality, so there was always the chance that was just how she was as a cat. Now that I had known her for the time that I've known her, I was in a full-blown panic.

So I called the vet back, and the vet agreed that wasn't normal. I had to take her back. And they ended up giving her medication for an allergic reaction to the vaccine. So when I brought her home again, she had stopped throwing up and everything, but she was just not herself. She wasn't really moving around. She wasn't, you know, happy, clearly. She wasn't eating[6]—well, she couldn't eat for a while, but when I allowed—when she was allowed to eat, she didn't start eating. And I was just worried.

So, she curled up in a chair; I let her do that, and I fell asleep for a very short time. And then I woke up, and she was meowing and so I went to her and she was just really, really slow. You could tell that—I mean, they gave her Benadryl, which if you've ever had Benadryl, it does make you a little drowsy, but we as people know what we're taking and what happening to us. But her as a cat, she didn't understand. So she was kind of fighting sleep, and you know she was kind of woozy, and she wasn't eating. She was drinking a little bit, sometimes. She basically wet up her whole face trying to drink the water. And you could tell that she was just scared, and I was scared for her.

I was up all night just sitting on the floor with a cat, and just talking to her. And I was just like, "It's gonna be OK. You're gonna be OK." You know, and of course I was praying for her, because that's what I would do for a person, too. As she started to get better and I started to not have to worry about her as much, she came, she laid down like she normally does—sprawled out on her back, feet up to the sky, and she started to sleep. I still didn't go to sleep because I was watching her and make sure she's breathing and because I was just worried about her.

And the whole experience made me think about a lot of things. So for one, I have a friend who just had a baby. And there were some medical complications with the baby when the baby was born, and so I know that she's been going through a lot with her baby. Knowing how worried I was about my cat, and it's a cat, I just felt so much for her. And I cannot begin to fathom what it's like to have a child that is sick, or that there's nothing you can do. You can't help them and they don't know what's going on, you can't soothe them, you can't comfort them. I just—you know, that kind of broke my heart.

And then, I started to think about how, obviously from a parental standpoint that is how God is with us—both for physical ailments and spiritual ailments. So there are times when we are in sin, or we're just sick—we have the flu, we have the common cold, or whatever, and God is literally[7] just sitting on the floor beside us trying to comfort us. Sometimes we reach out and hug Him, and sometimes we're just sitting there struggling on our own. And it just made me think, like of all the times I may have been sick and God has been there watching over me and how He would have felt, because God has infinitely more love and infinitely more compassion than I do as a person. And so I can just imagine Him looking down at all of us, at the entire race of humanity and seeing people going through things that are going through, and struggling with the things that are struggling with, and feeling like you know like "I just want to help you, let Me help you," and you know sometimes we're rejecting that help, but even when we're accepting it... That time that it takes for you to get from point A to point B; that time it takes you to kick that habit or whatever the case may be. And that joy He feels when you are better, you are well. The joy that He will feel when we were reunited in heaven. I just think that is a very, very powerful thing.

Alright guys. So that was me in the wee hours of the morning getting my mind absolutely blown by the Holy Spirit revealing how much God cares for us and how much He loves us. You know, just how He looks out for us and how He probably feels watching us as we struggle through life. You know, in the beginning I quoted some verses from John 11, where Jesus comes to raise Lazarus from the dead. It talks about weeping and seeing the people around Him sad made Him sad, and you know just knowing that level of—I don't know—commitment, of love,[8] of concern. It just touched me a lot, and I wanted to share it with you guys, because I think being able to feel that for other people for other life—be it a pet, or somebody else's pet, be it you know your friends, your family, a child... You know, I think that is a beautiful reflection and a beautiful reminder of who He is, and why He created us. You know seeing His image reflected in us and so yeah I had to share it with you guys.

For anybody who is wondering, Bubbles is doing great now. She's actually sitting in my lap as we speak,[9] and I don't know if it was this, you know, vet visit and the affect on her health or what, but she's actually letting me pick out some of these mats, which is surprising. So that's great, because I definitely don't want to have her sedated now that I've experienced that. So hopefully she'll let me pick out all of the mats, but while I continue to try to groom this cat, which is worse than growing my own hair—

Yeah, so don't forget to subscribe and thank you guys for tuning in! I will see you guys next time. Hopefully I will be talking about what I planned to talk about but you never know the Holy Spirit might have something else in mind. You can find the transcript for this episode at www.pslamstogod.com/aFathersLove. See you guys next time.