The Love of a Cat

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39 (NRSV)

Ken Roberts, from New Jersey, was never a cat person. And then one morning a hungry kitten showed up at his kitchen door, and Ken gave it a meatball. That day marked the beginning of his love of cats and led him to a deeper understanding of God's great love for us.

Ken had always had a hard time accepting the concept of God's unconditional love for us. He couldn't understand how God could continue to love us so much despite our attempts to push God away. Yet the Bible tells us that God loves us in spite of what we do. Living with his cat helped Ken to understand this in a new way, because no matter what she did - run away from him, push him away, all the little annoying things that cats do - Ken didn't care. He loved her so much that nothing she did harmed his relationship with her. He loved her unconditionally.

Ken finally realized that this is how God loves us. God loves us, and "neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." No matter what Ken does, no matter how many times he pushes away, God is always there to love him; and us too. With the help of a little cat, Ken finally understood the astounding magnitude of God's great love for us.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to recognize the lessons you teach us through your creation so that we may come to know and love you better, in Jesus' name. Amen.