Kitty Jump by Tina Hunt

Our devotion today was provided by guest blogger, Tina Hunt, one of our Pearls of Promise devotional contributors.  Tina is a writer and speaker from Ohio. She is also a theologian with a Masters of Divinity. To find out more about Tina, you can go to her website at: about.me/tina_hunt.  You can also follow her on Twitter @tinamhunt.

This morning a cat was sleeping at the base of one our maple trees in the front yard. She was snuggled into the roots with her back to the wind. I watched out my kitchen window while I washed some dishes. She occasionally looked up into the tree, clearly keeping an eye on something hidden up in the limbs.

As I watched, she stood, cautiously circled the tree, and then headed for our front porch. I walked from the kitchen to the living room picture window to see what she was up to. I peeked around the curtain and we were face to face. She froze. So did I. Then I began asking her what she was up to.

She quickly tired of my questions and headed back to the tree. I went back to the kitchen to watch. She looked up into the tree. Then she put her paws up the trunk and gave a big kitty stretch. Then she jumped, landing half-way up the trunk to the first crotch. I thought she might give up at that point—it was still quite a distance to the first limb. But no, she worked and pulled, pulled and climbed until she was not only to the lowest limb but moving on up higher.

I waited to see what would happen next. She was only up in the tree for a few minutes before she decided she needed to come down. She quickly moved to the lower limb, but stopped to contemplate her next move. It was too great a distance to jump. I wondered if I needed to offer assistance, but decided to watch the feral cat instead.

The brave climber made her first move, inching down the tree front paws first. This quickly proved to be the wrong choice as the weight behind her overpowered her frontward climb. Her backend swung around and she looked like she might fall. To my surprise, what looked like a disaster in the making turned into what seemed like a strategic movement. Her back legs completed the swing while her front paws released from the tree and in a blink she was hanging to the tree and descending the same way she had climbed it.

It was a move that would have rivaled a gymnast’s release on the uneven bars. I was in awe. I stood at my window and applauded as the kitty ran out of my yard.

Now if you are a return reader, you have already begun to wonder what spiritual implications I might draw from a cat in a tree. Have you seen any yet? What Bible reference pushed its way to the forefront of your mind?

Are you thinking about the persistence of the widow and the judge? Did your thoughts flow to doing what comes naturally? Or was it more about finishing strong?

Those are all good, but the thought that niggled its way into my heart was the oft repeated “don’t fear” that weaves its way through both the Old and New Testaments, and finds prominence several times in the Christmas story.

I was so sure if Kitty saw me as I peeked around the curtain she would skitter away instantly. But it didn’t happen. There was no fear in her eyes at all as I gazed into them. Then to watch her determined effort to both get up into and down from the tree, left a deep-seated impression on my heart.

I am facing the daunting task of finding a new job. Without going into the entire list of things that makes this so difficult and discouraging, just trust me when I say  if I were the cat and job hunting was jumping into the tree, I would be much more tempted to just walk away.

But I’m not wired that way. Walking away isn’t in my nature. So I’m looking at the tree like the cat. It’s a leap for sure, not without risk, but well worth the effort.

Nothing in scripture tells me to leap into the tree. But all of scripture resounds with “do not be afraid.” So here we go…one, two…..threeeeeeeee!