When to Praise the Lord

Deuteronomy 8:10 "When you have eaten and are satisified, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you."

Every morning, my cat Mermott comes in and jumps up on my desk, sitting between me and my monitor, and we have a short little session of head butting and cheek petting, before she jumps down and does whatever she does all day. This morning, however, she did not jump up on my desk, but stood on the floor beside my chair. When I tried to pet her, she walked away. When I tried to pick her up, she let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted down. After a while, I realized the bathroom door, where we keep the cats' food, was closed. Later, after she had eaten and was full, she came in and jumped up on my desk, ready for pets and full of purr.

Luke 22:17-19 "After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, 'Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.' "

A short while after Mermott had eaten, Buster came in from outside and stood at the office door meowing at me. I talked to him and he talked to me, as is our routine; and then he went and ate, and left.

One cat thanks me with a belly full, the other thanks me for the meal he is about to receive. I remember when I first read that Deuteronomy scripture, I wondered, why then do we pray before we eat?

Over the last weeks, I have struggled. I have struggled with doubt about whether God would bring me back to complete health, with whether I would spend the rest of my life living with this horrid nausea, with how expensive I was going to be to keep alive, and how much my life was worth. Perhaps these things seem obvious or trivial from a different perspective; but from the depths of nausea and depression and in the midst of the unknown, these are not trivial questions. Part of me knows that God will give me the grace and the means to do anything He calls me to. If He asks me to live with nausea for the rest of my life, He will give me the grace to endure it. If He asks me to live with kidney failure, He will provide the means for treatment for that. But, on the other hand, there is the nitty-gritty, day-to-day struggle....and it's been hard...and I have been losing the battle. I don't see God's grace provided to me. I'm not able to do what I want to do. I'm barely able to be civil to the people I love most.

But last Wednesday, at church, people prayed for me. Dennis said, "We will not let you go." And others told me they had faith that I would get well--even when I didn't have that faith. I realized that they were holding me up. When I could not stand, when I did not have faith, they held me up and had faith for me.

And as I pondered my two cats this morning, I realized that I was being Mermott, praising God for what I had already eaten, for the healing that had already taken place---but God wants me to be Buster, to thank Him for the meal I was about to eat, for the healing that will come.