I have been thinking a bit about faith and it's place in my life. This is not about religion but faith, faith that things will be better, faith that your heartfelt wishes can be heard and met, faith that in what seems to be a devastating and uncaring world someone cares. One of the most powerful stories of faith in my personal experience is the story of my niece and how she got her Angel Baby Kitty.
My niece loved kittens, cats, and all things cattish. When she was small, about 6 years old I gave her a toy stuffed cat - a very large white Persian kitty she promptly named Fluff. She loved Fluff. Fluff sat on her bed guarding her every night, Fluff was a pillow you could hug and tell secrets to, Fluff was a cat you could dress up that didn't squirm to get away and scratch you.
One day the first spring they stayed with us, a white female kitty showed up. She was friendly and let my niece and her little sister hold her and pet her. We knew she was the neighbor's barn cat, in heat, looking for a mate among our barn cats. My niece however, had another idea. This cat, she told us sincerely, was an angel from heaven, because she had prayed and prayed and prayed to God for a real white kitty to be her friend and this kitty was an answer to her prayers. My sister tried to gently let her know that no, this was the neighbor lady, Dorothy's, kitten. My niece was adamant. She KNEW this kitty was a prayer answered in the flesh.
My sister had lost everything, all her possessions, all her photos, all their clothes, but through this all she had never lost her faith: faith in God, faith that life would be different, faith that circumstances would improve. When Ms. neighbor kitty had her needs met and went home, what was this going to do to her little daughter? When talking about the Angel from Heaven, my little niece's voice had wavered and tears had come to her eyes, but her mouth had been set very determined and her chin said don't mess with me!!! How could my sister stop the disappointment we adults could all see coming?
Mother tiger mode set in. My sister went into full campaign attack mode. There was not much about their present life circumstances my sister could control, but she was NOT going to have her daughter disappointed about her Angel kitty. Calls went out, family members were recruited, customers of the family business were queried - is there a spare white kitten out there somewhere?
We lived in a very rural farming community. My graduating class in high school was less than thirty students. How would my sister find a pure white cat in this sparsely populated area, even with the plethora of half wild, half feral barn kitties? Most of the kitties in the region were striped or spotted, not many fancy white Angel kitties around. As luck would have it, right down the road from our family business, the niece of of a friend of our brother had a set of kittens ready to be adopted and some of those kittens were pure white. My sister made arrangements to pick up a special white kitty.
We went down, and there was this fat cute little pure white kitten. He was obviously well loved and well cared for. The little girl whose kitten he was very sad to see him go, but really loved the idea that she was giving him to another little girl. My memory goes dim at this point, but I think my sister brought her daughters with us and my niece picked out this ornery sparkly white Angel Kitty that she was certain God had sent there to be waiting for her.
Angel Kitty was an instant hit, and soon became Angel Baby Kitty, soon shortened to Baby. He became an enormous large lounge cat, who loved to be held and petted. My niece never knew how hard my sister searched for the perfect white kitty, under extremely tight time frames. This is how I think miracles happen - someone, somewhere, has faith - faith that wrongs will be righted, faith that justice will prevail, faith that Angels come down from heaven in the form of kittens to answer prayers and THEN someone somewhere has the heart and will to see that the faith is not in vain.
What moves these persons to have faith or take action where others don't? That is something you have to answer for yourself. I already have MY answer, but it might not be your answer.
I continue to have faith that things will be better, that life has joy and meaning left for me. I may be an old Fluff, worn out and scruffy, but I have faith that someday I will find new adventures and new challenges waiting for me, and my old broken shoebox of a body won't be a worry to me anymore.
