A Date with Destiny

A year ago, I walked into a pet store looking for a cat for someone. There weren’t many options. Only one was for sale, so I asked to hold the kitten. It was entirely black, and when she saw me, she began batting at my hair, nestled contentedly into my arms, and began purring. She didn’t stop purring the entire time I held her. I looked at her and suddenly knew that her name was Callie. I don’t know where the name came from, I just looked at her, and the name came into my mind. All I knew was the name Sammie didn’t fit. She had a growth in her eye that concerned me. The pet store clerk told me about her background while I held her. When she was a few weeks old, she’d been rescued by a shelter. Her mother and siblings were killed, and she was attacked by an animal and was hurt. The shelter cared for her and provided treatment to her eye, and when she was well, she was sent to the pet store. People had tried to adopt her, but everybody fell through. She’d been in the pet store for almost two months, waiting for an owner to adopt her. In the meantime, her eye was getting worse. I couldn’t let the kitten stay in the pet shop for several more weeks. She was so sweet and needed a home, so I filled out adoption papers. A few days passed, and I continued to think about the kitten, wondering if I would be accepted as her new owner. Finally, a call came.

“Are you ready to get Sammie?” The shelter asked.

“Sure.” My daughter replied when she answered the phone.

“Okay, you can sign the adoption papers at the pet store and pay the adoption fees, and then you can have her.

We were given instructions on her care, and it was recommended that she see a veterinarian as soon as possible.

My daughter and I quickly prepared for her arrival. We set up a cage in our living room and raced to the store to purchase her supplies. I called our vet and set up an appointment for her. Then we went to get her. I filled out the paperwork and paid for her. She was finally coming home.

When we brought her home, our cat Oliver couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Callie quickly spied his tower and climbed up to the top. Oliver stood up like a human peering over the top of the tower. From that moment on, he and Callie were inseparable.

But Callie’s eye issue began getting worse, and recently I took her to the vet to be evaluated. The vet agreed that Callie’s eye had gotten worse and prescribed eye drops to help her. At first, Callie fought the drops, and sometimes at night, she would hide so that I couldn’t give her the medicine. Daily I have had to work with her to make sure we get the eye drops in her eye. I have named her medicine Destiny, and I tell her that it is time for her date with Destiny. Daily I tell Callie that she needs Destiny, so she doesn’t go blind in that eye. Destiny is trying to help her so she can see. I always remind her that we are trying to help her eye get better. Over the weeks of having to do the eye drops, Callie has stopped fighting as much. It still isn’t her favorite time of day, but she has begun to acquiesce to the daily routine. Thankfully her eye is getting better.

Sometimes we have to do things that we don’t want to do. Maybe it has to take the medicine we don’t want to take or doing grunt work for a job. There are things that sometimes have to be done. Philippians 2:14, 15 says, “Do all things without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God . . .” Doing our work without grumbling is honorable to God. My prayer is that we will do even the mundane jobs we have to do without complaining.