July 15, 2020 “He’s a biter.” That’s what my husband says every time Pippin, one of our three cats, bites me. But Pippin isn’t a biter in general. Only I get bit. He also sits only on my lap, cuddles only with me at night and head butts only me in the morning when he thinks it’s time to wake up. As far as Pippin is concerned, Adam, my husband, exists only as a food delivery system. Jake, our son, barely exists at all. Pippin’s bites don’t break skin, and they tend to come mostly when he thinks I should be petting him, but I’m not, or when he thinks I should be petting him with both hands. He’s bitten my fingers, my forearm, my elbow and even my nose. With me, Pippin is definitely a biter. While the bites don’t typically hurt, they also don’t feel great, and they sometimes surprise me. After a recent surprise bite while I was in bed, almost asleep, I exclaimed, “why does this cat keep biting me?” “Because he loves you,” Adam said. “He has a funny way of showing it,” I responded. Stewing about Pippin’s disruption to my pending slumber, it occurred to me that his biting behavior isn’t all that dissimilar to how people behave. We tend to hurt the ones we love most. I’m guessing most of us don’t lose our tempers or say hurtful things to our colleagues, our acquaintances or the people we encounter while running errands. We lose our tempers or say hurtful things to the ones we love – to our spouses, our family members, our close friends. Why? Maybe it’s because they’re the people we’re around the most, and we’re comfortable enough to let our guards down. Maybe it’s because we know they’ll absorb the moments when we’re not at our best, and they’ll still love us, just like I still love my biting cat. Similarly, we do things that hurt God. We have moments of laziness and apathy with our faith. We sin. Regardless of how badly we behave and how badly we sin, God still loves us. We all have those moments in which we figuratively bite, whether its our loved ones or our Lord. Yet we’re still loved. It’s such a huge blessing. But I still wish Pippin would stop biting me and let me sleep. |
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