Your life may be a symphony, but mine is one allegory after another. 

A symphony would be nice.  I’d like a symphony.  Some nice strings contending with some pan flutes as the occasion arises for change….a slow rhythmic bass drum in the routine sections of normal living… crescendos to a snare solo leading to some brass as a life situation gets more dramatic, slowing back down to a woodwind melody as it evens out… Yeah, a symphony would be nice.

But my life seems intent on playing out in prophetical allegory.  It probably wouldn’t make a difference if I actually wanted something different.  This seems one of the ways God gets my attention, draws parallels from scenarios to help me understand.  Sometimes it’s pretty cool, like the time my husband bought me a mini cooper and the Spirit indicated a new season of ministry for me by characteristics of the car.  It wasn’t so cool when the rod broke in a flash flood – that was an allegory too. 

When my daughter totaled our new favorite car days before Christmas a few years ago, I resisted the allegory God put in my spirit that our family was totaled by a seeming small thing.  In real life she had my small dog in the car, and she said he distracted her and she swerved into a parked car.  This was a painful lesson on about every front, but the Spirit incessantly whispered, “But your daughter is unharmed.” 

I knew we weren’t out of the woods when we replaced the car.  It seemed like just a fill in for some reason, not as good as the one we delighted in.  Bill was never really content with it and ended up selling it for a loss to our daughter’s boyfriend to help him out.  The car we replaced that one with has been the bane of Bill’s car existence for the duration of this car.  It was in a front end accident and completely refurbished.  On the outside it looked so good – for about a month.  Then we noticed the paint job was shoddy, and the door was bent.  There were paint drips and bubbles we missed at first inspection, and some rust spots on the hood.  The stereo only partially worked, the dash had a small crack that grew larger the longer we had the car.  One of the consoles didn’t always close correctly.  I was endangered when two weeks after buying the car I was stuck in a snow storm in western Colorado and learned while driving through a blizzard that the windshield wiper was disconnected to the reservoir.  That was literally life and death scary. 

Somewhere in the disillusion of the new car that was continually surprising me with weak points, the Spirit indicated it was the current condition of our family.  I didn’t care for that analogy so I ignored it – until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  My family had been in an accident and the damage was manifesting in a myriad of “lesser” ways as the days turned into months. 

As Bill grumbled about the continuing and increasing car issues, the Spirit quietly paralleled them to our family issues.  The only consolation I received in these times was “but the engine is good”.  All of the flaws on the car were cosmetic and minimal.  They did not impact the cars drive-ability or its road worthiness.  (minus the blizzard drive that one time)  It was crazy low miles on the car, with an engine that was rock solid.  So that is what I would tell Bill as he would complain about something else he discovered.  “It’s okay, dear.  The engine is good.”

This is not a favorite lesson of mine.  I have a feeling we’ll have this car until resolution in our family happens.  That’s just the way my life works.  The allegory God is using to speak to me about a condition in my life exists until I either learn what I need to understand, or the allegory is resolved.

The interesting lesson in this is we bought a used car with crazy low miles.  It was a salvage title and we were told it was because it had some minor repair work.  After owning the car we realized it was a bit more than minor.  There was a front-end collision once upon a time and the damage from that accident lent itself to the current less than optimal “fixes”.  I was unaware of the accident of the car, just as I was unaware of the accident in my family. 

Because of my own childhood and the issues I brought into our marriage and subsequently our family, you could say I was a salvage title.  Because of my state in the early years of our family, before healing and before deliverance, there was damage in our earlier family that somehow was masked with some paint jobs and hastily reconstructed repair work.  Now, years later, it is manifesting in similar ways.

So when my beloved cat uncharacteristically disappeared a few weeks ago and normal efforts at locating him failed, I figured this was another lesson for me.  As the hours turned to days turned to weeks, I countered my husband’s optimism of Hobbes’ return with carefully meted out realism:  Hobbes will not return until I have learned what I need to learn from his disappearance.

I wrote about the time I was attacked by a dog and it was an allegory for a belief system that was dangerous.  Sometimes the allegory speaks louder than the actuality.  I’m not here to argue about whether all of the extra circumstances in one’s life are allegories.  I wouldn’t pretend that God speaks to everyone the same.  I know in fact that He does not.  But over the years, I have learned to pay attention to how God may be speaking to me.  If it’s out of the ordinary, if it doesn’t follow regular routine and my normal circumstances, more times than not God is using it to illustrate a concept to me I may not otherwise receive.

Hobbes’ disappearance was another of these for me.

The way it works for me….

God is so much a personal God that all I can do is tell how it works for me but with the disclaimer that it will be different for you.  But maybe in the telling of my own experience it will help someone seek out how God speaks to them.

I am wired to search for meaning.  I seek understanding and meaning in practically everything.  It’s how I’m wired.  I have a daughter who is wired to see art.  I have another daughter who is wired to see sequence and logic.  If we think for a minute that God is going to show each of them the same thing in the same way, we don’t understand God.  He speaks to us individually.

To the best of my ability, I have submitted my life to God.  It’s a process, but it’s a process that I’m continually growing in.  God knows how I think and process, and He speaks to me through my understanding of my own particular process.  This is how I know when a life circumstance out of the ordinary is an allegory for understanding that God is using to teach or illustrate something to me. 

In the case of Hobbes, here’s my reality that God was using to speak through:  I live on a busy street in the middle of a capital city.  I used to live on a farm.  Because I live on a busy street in a busy city, I did not want an outdoor cat.  I did not want the heartache of it being hit by a car.

A couple Christmases ago, Bill thought I needed a cat and got me an adorable kitten. 

I kept Hobbes inside for the winter, and let him out in the backyard in the spring to acclimate.  But as is the reality for cats, they love to explore.  Hobbes eventually outgrew the backyard and was off about the neighborhood. 

It was too stressful for me to worry about Hobbes’ welfare outside of my property so I had a chat with God.  I told Him I knew Hobbes was more important to God than even to me, and I was trusting that God would care for Hobbes outside of my jurisdiction.  I plead the Blood of Christ over my home, my property, and all that pertains to me daily.  I entrusted Hobbes into God’s care, and that is how I manage to have a cat that I love in the middle of the city.

So when Hobbes disappeared, it was never a question to me that it was an accident.  I knew it was not.  I have deliberately entrusted my cat into the care of my Father.  When Hobbes hadn’t returned in a few days, I began the normal process I normally go through when the routine has been changed:  I asked God what I was supposed to learn or understand. 

There was an immediate parallel my mind drew to some actions of some of my daughters, but I pushed it away because I didn’t like the parallel and I ignored it.  After so many days of this, I was forced to look at it again by my own hard-wiring of seeking understanding and meaning.  I was annoyed and maybe a little angry.  I’ve suffered a lot of loss lately, and the loss of my cat was personal to the inclusion of just me.  I lashed out at God, said something like, “I’m getting a little tired of all these lessons!”  He responded, “Break it down.  What does it [Hobbes’ disappearance/loss] speak to you in its simplest terms?” 

After some thought, I hard-lined it like this:  “I’ve lost something precious to me.”  He let me sit on that a few days and He asked me what that could parallel.  To me, it parallels intimate relationship I’ve lost with my daughter(s).  After a few days, I asked Him what I was supposed to be learning.  (It took me a few days because the pain was so poignant.)  He said, “What could you have done differently to keep Hobbes from leaving?  What do you think you did that caused it?” 

After some thought, I replied, “I don’t know.  I couldn’t have loved him more.  I met all his needs.  He was well loved, well cared for.  I don’t know what I could have done differently.”  And God said, “Exactly.  It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”

Then He said, “I knew you wouldn’t believe it with your daughters so I used your cat.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  They didn’t leave because of you.  It’s not your fault.”

You see, I lost something precious to me, precious relationship with my daughter(s).  And I have believed for a long time it was my fault.  They may even believe it is my fault.  But God says it isn’t.  And I have a choice to believe God or not. 

I usually can’t explain these things to others.  It’s one of those things that I’ve learned over time on how God speaks to me.  I realize it may sound fantastical or over-imaginative to some.  I can’t help that, nor do I want to.  All I know is God is real.  He speaks to me through dozens of things:  songs, nature, my husband, numbers, dreams, and my circumstances, to name a few. 

He knows I seek meaning and look for purpose.  He speaks to me in things I have no control over so I don’t question whether I manipulated (even inadvertently) a situation.  He knows I pay attention to the details and I ask the difficult question.  He knows I get angry or annoyed or confused.  So He takes those things into account.  I knew Hobbes was going to stay missing until I learned what God was trying to show me.

So just past midnight two nights ago, Hobbes showed up.  I asked God for Hobbes to come home on Christmas, but I knew he wouldn’t.  I felt like God wasn’t going to allow him to show up when someone else was here, because it was a lesson just for me.  He showed up just past midnight when I was in bed about to go to sleep.  Bill was at work for another 20 minutes.

Besides thanking God for Hobbes’ safe return, I’ve had a few conversations with Him about what all I’m supposed to be learning.  Here’s what he showed me yesterday:  “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”  (Psalm 24:1)  I entrusted my cat to God’s care, and God can be trusted.  Even more so, I entrusted my children to God’s care.  They could not be in better hands. 

I know the nature of a cat is to explore, and I have not desired for a moment to restrain my cat from its natural instincts.  It’s more important to me that Hobbes is free to come and go, than to restrain him in my home unable to leave.  I am willing to suffer the uncertainty of Hobbes’ return in order for him to be free to operate as he was created.  I have done the same with my children.  It is more important to me that they be free, than carefully restrained in limitations I design for their safety.  I don’t find a life restrained from its original purposes of freedom a fair life, and so I have entrusted all that the Lord has given me to the Lord to keep and preserve.  It may at times have undesirable outcomes for me, but I am not willing to circumvent freedom to change outcomes.

Sometimes it’s hard, these allegories and the realities they represent.  But sometimes it’s redeeming.  Either way, I’m grateful God reaches out to me to help me on this journey of life.  One day we’ll get a new car, an undamaged car.  I’m gonna guess when that happens, our family will be mended quite nicely by then.