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The kittens in our backyard
Last spring, while my husband was traveling overseas on a business trip, one of our neighbors discovered a stray mother cat with a litter of five newborn kittens in his backyard. The neighbor said that he and his wife would adopt one of the kittens, but the other four were going to need homes. He asked if I knew anyone who might be interested, and I said I’d ask around. But to be honest, I was thinking, “Glad this is happening in your backyard, and not mine.”
Not long afterward, the mother cat disappeared. But before she left, she had moved the four kittens over to another neighbor’s yard—which happened to be right next to ours. So they were getting closer. And before I knew it, the four kittens had found their way onto our property and set up camp on our patio.
I now realized that I could no longer be mentally disengaged from the situation. And I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t until this point that I thought, “You really need to pray about this.” So I did.
The kittens were part of God’s perfect, spiritual creation, and they had a right place and purpose.
Once I accepted the fact that I could turn to our Father-Mother God for direction about what to do, the direction started to come. I fed the kittens and made sure they had a safe place in our garage to go to. I sent out e-mails and flyers to dozens of friends in the community telling them about the kittens and asking for help in finding homes. Several people expressed interest, and a few came over to look, but nobody took any kittens. They were still in our backyard.
A fellow church member who read my e-mail sent me this very powerful message: “These kittens belong.” To me this meant that they were part of God’s perfect, spiritual creation, and they had a right place and purpose. The idea of “belonging” felt so important because the thought that the kittens were unwanted kept tugging at my heart. I started to worry that we would end up having to keep them. My husband and I would be willing to do that, but because we already had two cats, adopting four more didn’t feel like the right solution.
Early one morning, as I was praying, I came across this statement by Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which indicates His tender relationship to His spiritual creation” (p. 332 ). And then I remembered the words of Malachi the prophet: “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (2:10 ).
That was the reassurance I needed to relinquish the worry and accept the promise of God’s care for those kittens. After all, they belonged to God’s creation, just as I did. We all had the same Maker, the same Father-Mother. The cruel argument “Who would want to adopt those kittens” now seemed absurd and irrelevant as I pondered—and humbly accepted—God’s all-wise, loving control.
My husband came home from his trip, and we agreed to regard ourselves as foster parents of the kittens with the purpose of getting them ready for their new homes. And very quickly that’s what happened. A lady from our church said she would take one, and when she came over, she decided to take two. Then a young woman who was in town visiting her family took the last two kittens home with her.
I smile every time I think about this experience. Despite my wanting to keep the kittens at arm’s length, finding homes for them turned out to be a blessing all around. Thank you, Father-Mother God!
About the author
Missy Williams lives in Jerseyville, Illinois, with her husband, John, and their two cats, Norman and Miss Cindy.