playrooms.... and prisons

February 5, 2007 (several yrs old.. but still good)

Four days ago my cat got locked up in Sabrina's bedroom for the whole afternoon. She was making a great racket from the mustering of her intense and concentrated efforts to get out before I finally realized that it was her that was causing all the ruckus, and that she was locked up and trying to get out of what had become her "jailed cell." She was doing everything that she could to open the door (and trust me, she's gotten pretty good at it); but try as she might, this time she was not strong enough to open the door on her own. I found her there (after all of her noise) and opened it for her.

Thrilled for being set free from her confinement she could not love on me big enough or long enough to thank me loud enough. That night, all through the night's hours, she woke me from my slumber, begging for my attention and giving me more love in her still great gratitude for my releasing her from her prison. She kept rubbing on me -- and rubbing on my head! (A thing that I could hardly stand to bare.) Oh my, it was so grossing me out! Go ahead, rub on me if you will --but not on my head! I could hardly sleep for her doing this over and over all throughout the late night and through the early morning hours.

That was four days ago. Yesterday, she got locked up again - in another land of prisoned captivity. This time though, not in Sabrina's bedroom, but in the "play" room (of all places!). Can we not all relate to that? Can we not relate to finding ourselves locked up and being imprisoned in what we once thought innocently enough to be our playrooms? Are we not talking: Been there! Done that! Played the game! Flirted till we got caught by its trap! Wore the t-shirt kind of thing? --- and we couldn't take it off again until God Himself cut the cloth and helped rid us of its horror?!

Often (though rarely do we mention it or admit it), often our "playrooms" end up to be our prisons, no? If I walked into your world in this season of your life what would I find you "playing" with if you didn't have time to hide it? What are you toying with? Having fun with; though having no intention at all of being caught and confined there, but still touching a toy that's not meant to be yours and you know it! Just laughing with it. Just having a bit of fun. Oh my goodness, you tell me, you're not planning on staying there!

Careful what you're playing with and where you find yourself playing; because before you know it your toys might be the bait that lured you, and your playroom could very well become your prison.

Last night around 8ish I realized that I had not seen Oottababy (my cat) all day, and I wondered where she might be. I went in search of her... again! That's when I found her in the playroom waiting for the door to be opened. My son had shut (and for whatever reason, locked???) the playroom door the morning before and Oootta-baby (to her utter horror and dismay) found hersel bound and held captive again behind closed doors. Unable to unlock the chains that bound her (for lack of a better word) for almost a day and a half. Needless to say, when I released her from her prison a second time in not so many days, she was even happier and more grateful than the first time I did. She not only loved on my head all through the night as she had done before, but she SAT ON IT! She literally SAT on my head! Not laid, mind you, but sat ~~ as if she perched herself as my crown ~ with me being crowned the queen of her kingdom. (And yes, her sitting there feels just like what you think it does! And yes again, those same thoughts that you're thinking were the very same thoughts that I was thinking!) I would push her off, only for her to nestle up close to me to sleep in front of my face. I felt she wanted to breathe my breath! She soooooo (at that moment) reminded me of myself! In my gratitude and humbleness and awe and love for what Jesus had done for me after He rescued me from my pit (my prison), the only safe place that I could afford to be after my rescue from my foreign land excursion was sitting in front of His face and at His feet! The ONLY safe place in all of the world to be! For He truly is my Refuge! And I (like her) would have sat on His head (I think) if I had had a way and I could have!

This morning the dawn woke me to another surprise. (I DO hope that it was my cat that did it and that it didn't just crawl there! I cringe to think that it might not have been her, so I'll just choose to believe that it was). I awoke to a dead roach resting next to my head.... on my pillow!!!!!! Horror above all horrors! But you know what I thought (after my initial scare and shock) when I saw it lying there? I thought that in her thankfulness she was bringing me a sacrifice. An offering of some sort to thank me for what I had done. All she had to offer was a dead roach, so she brought me the thing. Something had to die, so that she might have life! That's what Jesus did for me, and He did for you! And sometimes we need to be reminded that to have life, sometimes there's got to be the death of a thing that won't let us live. The only "playroom" that I want to live in is right in front of His face. And sometimes with a dead roach on His pillow (if that's all I have to offer) to thank Him for all that He's done for me while I'm there.

Just as I went in search of my cat (in her foreign land) Jesus went in search of me in mine when I was missing from my place at home. He found me in my Egypt. And He not only opened the door and brought me back, but He fought the foes that kept me enslaved in that land. The Shepherd, indeed, goes in search of His sheep. He searches for the lost ones, the ones that have wandered, the ones that have fallen and can't right themselves back up again.

Do you have any idea of the first thing that I did after I found her? I took her into the kitchen and gave her something to drink and to eat. It reminds me of the prodigal son. When he came home the Father had the fatted-calf killed and a feast prepared for him to eat to celebrate his homecoming!

I think I'll go sit in front of His face for a while! And I'll thank HIM for unlocking all the doors to my self-inflicted prisons!

Isn't He GOoD?

He is so GooD!

Three days later.....................................

                 

Hmmmm ---- it's days later, and I feel a need to update:

Here it is... days later from then, and Oootta-Baby has not been sleeping in front of my face lately. Nor will you find her on my head! No roach upon my pillow! That happens to us too sometimes. The further we get from our immediate rescued moment; we quickly forget what all God's done for us. And we quit hanging out at His feet and in front of His face! Oh no! For our neglecting can be our downfall that easily ends us back behind closed and locked doors in the "playroom". Or Heaven-forbid, another "bedroom!" Finding ourselves locked in yet another prison! Our face has turned its focus and sniffed for smells to appease the appetite. We'll wander before we meant to, playing with something that we ought not to and have no business playing with! Taunting the threat of its terror and finding it tempting. Or (!) we might be found in the bedroom sleeping with our sin! Found in a prison again! Of course, as I type this, my cat's sitting all squinty-eyed in the chair beside me. Earlier, I found her just hanging out in the closet. Digging up old bones? Looking at the skeletons once hanging alive there?

What she does alot (and that gives me the most laughter) she is always all over my Bibles and papers and books as I study. Usually I have at least about four Bibles propped upon my lap at the same time, close to my touch so as to be ready for my fingers to do their walking. She climbs up on top of them (ears held back in the total misery and uncomfortableness of it) and lays down (having to hang on for dear life so she won't fall off (she's got a strong arm!)). That too is another picture of our sometimes, huh? We know we need to be in the Word, but sometimes we just really really don't "want" to! So, we'll read (just to say we have), ears held back from the pure misery of it the whole time. But "hanging on" at the moment - the best way we can. If that's the only way for the moment, well hang on the best way you can until you find your comfort there!

God IS all of our need! He is what satiates and fills! No other thing can fill with the filling that He fills our feelings with that has desperate need to be filled. 

"When tempted,
no one should say, "God is tempting me."
For God cannot be tempted by evil,
nor does He tempt anyone;
but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire,
he is dragged away and enticed.
Then,
after desire has conceived,
it gives birth to sin;
and sin,
when it is full-grown,
gives birth to death.
Don't be deceived, my dear brothers.
Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth,
that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created."

James 1:13-18