Such Sadness

I need your prayers really bad right now. I wish I could say I’m doing great but the reality of things right now is that I’m devastated. On Sunday I found a cat dead in our road and I took him across the street to the park. I didn’t see any injuries and so I assumed he was poisoned, as this happened to my secretary’s cat just a month ago. People get mad because the cats are out on their roofs.

I was concerned about Brady being out but there really was nothing I could do. He wasn’t out at night so I hoped that would be okay. Sadly yesterday evening, Brady came in and we played for a little while and then he got up on my lap to watch LOST with me. He was just purring away. All of a sudden he began to choke, which is normal. So I tried to help him and he was better for a moment. But that was the beginning of the end. He began have spasms and was losing his ability to walk and right then I knew he was dying. It was devastating to watch but thankfully it happened in 10-15 minutes and my friend, Kathy, dropped everything and immediately came over. She was there when he died.

Yes I’m devastated, angry, sad, hurting, and every other type of feeling that goes with that. Yet at the same time I am so thankful. I’m thankful to Kathy who just sat here with me, helped clean up the poop all over my house (now that’s a friend!), took me to drop off my cat and just to sit with me.

I’m so thankful to my sweet landlord and her family, whose property I live on. They loved Brady and took care of him when I had to go to Nicaragua. They heard my wailing and ran down quickly to see what was going on. They too were there when he died. They actually picked up his body for me and cleaned up the spot in my kitchen where he died. Flor also made me some hot tea. Her little 3 year old grand-daughter was saying a prayer thanking God that Brady was with Him now.

I’m also thankful to Hope and Brian who allowed us to come to their house almost close to 9pm to drop off Brady so they could bury him in the morning on their property for me. They love animals and can understand how hard this is.

I’m even thankful at how when I turned on my music and put it on random that a lot of the songs were about Christ giving me perfect peace, how He will take care of me, and how He loves me. I so needed those at that moment. God is so amazing like that; always romancing us even in times of devastation and hurt.

I’m also thankful that it happened on a night that I didn’t have to work the next day, as Wednesdays are my days off.

I was afraid I would not sleep and would have nightmares. The pharmacy had just closed so I wasn’t able to get some sleeping pills, but I think that is what God wanted. It took a long time before I could just lie down and go to sleep but finally after screaming multiple times into my pillow and beating up my bed I finally fell asleep. I woke up multiple times but each time was after a good complete sleep cycle. I only had one dream about Brady and it wasn’t a bad one. God made me get up earlier than I would have liked. (I would have liked to just stay in bed today.) It was very hard to not have my sweet kitty cuddled up with his head pressed against mine, his front paw stretched out across my neck (as if he was hugging me) and him purring like crazy. About every 15 minutes tears begin to flow but it will all get better.

So now I have to get use to not having my sweet Brady to greet me and cuddle with me at night. But I know that God is going to help me through this. This comes on top of several very hard months and I know that the enemy would love to use this to just tear me all the way down. It’s been hard enough to keep my head above water lately. However, I am running to Jesus. I am giving Him my feelings and thoughts. Yes I will feel and I will cry much more, but I’m gonna do it in a way that I’m running to Christ and finding my peace in Him. I will not allow the enemy to use this. We have already claimed victory over this one. (I know it may sound funny or strange to you that I say all of that over a death of a cat, but he was my baby and my company here. And I’m a freak about cats anyways!! And this, the emotions, could lead to a negative effect of depression, or what not.)

Please pray for me as I deal with the death of my sweet Brady and the emotions. Pray that I will continue to run straight into the arms of my Lover, Jesus. Pray that I can sleep and without nightmares of replaying his death out and seeing him dead. I just need prayers. Thank you.