Lately, with the level of physical pain I continue to endure, I find myself questioning whether prayer really works. I don’t think there’s a day that has gone by since all of this started back in 2010 where I haven’t asked God to help get me to the point where I don’t hurt anymore. Prayer is a funny thing in that sometimes it seems to produce a desirable outcome and other times it doesn’t. In regards to the prayers I’ve said surrounding my physical pain, they don’t seem to have been answered yet, at least not in the way that I think they should be answered, solely because I’m still in a lot of pain. But in the case of other things that I’ve prayed for, such as the issues that once surrounded my partner’s cat, I’ve been blessed to see one of those positive outcomes actually happen.
It’s been about 17 months now since I was first introduced to Driggs, my partner’s female cat. Within the first few days of that initial visit to her home, it was made very obvious to me that she was not happy with my presence there. Every single attempt I made to get closer to her was met with an angry growl or a very loud hiss. I could tell she was very threatened by me. At one point she even bit me and drew blood, which was only met with a backlash of my anger and complaints to my partner that put him in a very uncomfortable position on what to do. For the rest of that visit, I tried more controlling behaviors such as closing her in a bedroom. All that did was make me feel guilty and her angrier. On the next visit, I tried another approach. I outright ignored her. Her response to that behavior was to constantly come up to where I was sitting and stare at me and then hiss and run away when I tried to reach down in another attempt to pet her. I began to grow resentful about it and in a selfish way I started wishing I could find her a new home to live even though my partner truly loved his cat. In my irritation, I fondly nicknamed her Cujo Kitty, which was aptly named after the dog that went psycho in the Stephen King movie. After several more visits with no changes in the standoff between us, I decided to try the one thing I hadn’t yet. I prayed for her.
Praying for a cat initially seemed silly to me, but with an open heart I began asking God daily to bring love, forgiveness, and peace to Driggs. Through those prayers, I felt moved to do some of my own healing work on her using a technique I had learned with magnets to release energy blockages. In addition, I also felt guided after those prayers to start adding a few droplets of one of my calming herbal essences to her water. And then finally, in one more attempt to show her some love instead of anger, I brought her to a groomer for the first time in her life. What happened next was completely unexpected. The next day after her grooming, she was staring at me again while I was sitting on the couch and suddenly she jumped up on top of me and meowed slightly. I was stunned and slowly, ever so slowly, I put my hand on her and stroked the short hair behind her ears. After a few moments of adjustments, she lay down and began purring. And the rest was history.
It’s been over six months since then and rarely has there been a day that goes by when I’m visiting where she hasn’t wanted to lay on me for long periods of time and do nothing more but purr and fall asleep. When I’m in a separate room than her doing something like working on a puzzle, she’ll come join me and lie on the floor near me and start purring again. She will even come nuzzle me now when I lay sprawled out on the floor watching television. So I guess it’s safe to say now in the case of those prayers I said to God regarding Driggs that they worked.
Did it happen in the way I originally wanted? No because my ego wanted a quick fix and I see more clearly these days that there are no quick fixes. Instead it took a lot of time and a lot of patience. And it most definitely took a lot of love. Because of what I learned in this, I am doing my best to apply what happened with Driggs to the prayers I’ve said to God surrounding the healing of my physical pain. I realize that healing takes time and patience, especially knowing that I didn’t get sick overnight. And I also see now that it’s important to love everyone and everything, including all the physical pain and myself. In doing all of this, I’ve come to the belief that maybe God really does provide a desirable outcome to all of our prayers, except the path to get there might just be a wee bit different from what we think it should look like.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson