We endured the 20+ hours it took to get home from our wonderful trip. Then we walked in the door.  A big fat snow storm. A frozen pipe oozing water down the back wall and creating  nasty ice sculpture. An innovative toilet not functioning and bilge puddling from between the basement tiles. Trash and mail piled up. And, of course, there was the love-starved cat.

Once we returned, the cat stuck to us like glue all night and day. So I thought she was sticking when I took out the trash. But she darted out the door and into the frigid night and falling snow unbeknownst to me. I suppose I was less careful since, “What cat would go out in a blizzard?” We were cuddled up in our blankets for a long time until we noticed there was no longer a cat on top of us.

I guess you don’t know how much you need to trust God until you need to. We were beside ourselves. We love the cat almost as much as she loves us. We looked through every nook and cranny of our new, little house and could not find her. She had fooled us before, so we waited for her to appear from out of nowhere. Then we looked outside. Then we tried to go to sleep and wait for her to come out. I said, “We’ll just have to give her to God.” I admit I was not completely satisfied with that prayer. But where else can you go when you have nowhere else to go?

The angel

I tried to go to sleep but it did not work out. So I got up to do some more post-trip sorting out. About 2am, while I was typing, I heard someone shout at me from our back alley, which had never happened before. It looked like our neighbor, so I went out in the falling snow in my robe. “I’m looking for your cat,” he said. I had texted his roommate and everyone else in range, to sound the alarm. He went on to say, “I’m kind of the neighborhood ‘cat shepherd’ and I don’t want to lose another one.”

So we all started looking as the snow poured down – all around our block, under cars, behind bushes. Nothing. I went back to our porch to start over for the umpteenth time and I heard a cat. It was ours. She was settled into a cat shelter the neighbor had made out of a storage container. He was overjoyed and began to cry and admitted he was a little drunk.

So when I gave the cat to God, did that result in the arrival of a drunk angel to connect me with my beloved? My answer is “Yes.” You decide for yourself. You decide if it was right for me to feel like I  was George on the bridge meeting the semi-competent Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. 

Angels in any condition are needed

The whole experience made me think we’d all better become adept at turning to God when we are desperate. Troubling times keep troubling up, after all.

A woman in Northeast Philly captured the moment on her security camera when she was walking her dog and her neighbor unwittingly unleashed three pit bulls from his house. They attacked her dog and bit her mercilessly. I don’t know whether she called Top Dog to save her (link in case you don’t live in Philly). But even if she did, she’ll need deeper healing and help than any lawyer can provide.

When Liam Arias and his father, Adrian were whisked out of Minnesota and locked up in Dilly, Texas, all sorts of angels appeared. Representative Juan Castro personally escorted them home when a judge ruled against the “perfidious” power-grabbing ICE keeps acting out. Having met a few refugees, I can tell you they have to trust God because they have so little hope.

Every day in this terrible time the cat is out in the snow, the dogs are out of their cages and armed men might appear in the neighborhood without a moment’s notice. Most of us are desperate enough to ask for help. Let’s start there with trust, not just end up there when there is nowhere else to go.

You may not believe God will help you or believe God is with you even if there is no hope for you. But it is still true: Jesus will be there and is there. Before I was even able to wonder why I was doing it, my Sunday school teacher got me to memorize how Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” I did not get the “Lo” or the “end of the age” or even “unto.” But I somehow understood “I am with you always.” And I have never forgotten.

I admit I often think I am responsible or to blame for a lot of the bad things that happen to me and I get frustrated because I don’t know how I am going to fix the war in Ukraine. But when I am afraid my loving cat is going to freeze to death, my thoughts naturally turn to God. And there God was in my drunk neighbor. I’ll concede that actual angels may have been helping too. But until Gabriel, or whoever, appears to me, I’ll take an angelic human or whatever goodness God shares with me next. I think we all have some angel in us. We should be quite useful to each other in desperate times.