Note: This article was written in 2016 and published on my church’s blog; however, the recent heat wave that gripped the nation reminded me that it might be worth sharing again on my own site. Three years later, there are some elements of this post that are no longer relevant to my current life. For example, I no longer have a basement, broken air conditioner, or husband. Minor details. Some things are still the same. I do still have my cat, Bella. In her old age she hates a few less people. Kind of.
Shortly after writing this post, my life took another drastic turn toward chaos which eventually led to my divorce. I can honestly say now that my life has been fully disrupted and then later restored, that I believe these words now more than ever.
Cats and HVAC: Finding God in the Chaos
A few weeks ago our twenty-two year old air conditioning unit decided it no longer wanted to be a functional air conditioner. As you may recall, this perfectly coincided with the worst heat wave our region has seen all summer, so the timing was impeccable. As is the case in Virginia in July, the heat was oppressive, but even worse was the stifling humidity. My husband and I decided to rough it out in the 100-degree temperatures by camping in the basement for a few days. While it certainly wasn’t convenient, we’ve endured worse things in life and it reminded me how lucky we are to have this luxury. However, we were a bit concerned about our pets, particularly my cat, Bella.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bella, she is beautiful and she knows it. She has lustrous long black hair, golden eyes, and a bushy tail. She has an opinion about everything, and typically that opinion is rude. I’m pretty sure she hates most people she meets and is a perfect example of why most people hate cats.
I love her.
As you can imagine, Bella is accustomed to a certain level of comfort. I try to remind her what life would have been like had I never rescued her from the streets, but she simply licks her paws to clean off the canned tuna she had earlier. During the heat wave, Bella experienced a discomfort that she had never felt before, veering wildly outside of the typical 74 degrees on our thermostat. Her beautiful black fur was clearly adding to her misery, and started to resemble a dirty mop. Stubbornly, she refused to come downstairs. Rather, Bella lay sprawled across her favorite chair, literally melting into it like a droopy puddle. After a while she’d move to the bathroom sink, then lay beside the vents hoping for a breeze. She looked a bit rough, but her daily routine of lounging lazily and being superior to the rest of us was pretty much intact, so she didn’t exactly hate life.
Until the HVAC people came.
This moment I’d been longing for seemed to have the opposite effect on Bella. While I was basking in joy, she decided her world was ending. Within 14 seconds of their arrival, Bella lost her ever-loving mind. Who are these people? What are those noises? OMG the smells! Get out of my house! Ears tucked. Tail up. The panic was palpable as she tried every possible hiding place to avoid the disruption to her world. This was hands-down the absolute worst day in her entire life.
Naturally, I did what I always do in these situations – I tried to reason with her. As you can imagine, this went about as well as all other conversations I have had with my cat. Bella, please let the vet stick this needle into you. It’s totally fine, and I swear you’ll thank me later when you don’t have rabies. (Later that night she may have threatened to cut me in my sleep.) Naturally I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about her ability to understand this situation.
As I tried to explain the abstract concept of air conditioning to this terrified little furball, I realized that this is probably exactly the way God feels when interacting with humans. Just like a cat, we think we should be in control of our lives, and as the smartest beings, we totally know what is best. We don’t want change or chaos or noise or anything outside of what we have chosen for ourselves. However, so much about God and life is completely beyond our comprehension.
There is a popular Christian song right now with the lyric, Your world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place. It’s not falling apart. It’s falling into place. How often has this been the case, yet we’ll never know it? For my cat, her world was falling apart, yet really it was being restored. Once the air conditioner was working, Bella didn’t look at me and say, “Wow, thanks master servant, you really knew what you were talking about.” No. She still punished me for days for ruining her life. Yet, while she was sulking, little by little, the air around her was shifting. Honestly, she probably didn’t even notice at first, nor did she have any concept as to why this was happening. However, eventually she stuck her whole head down a vent hole, basking in the glory of cold air.
God is speaking to us all the time, and God is working for good all the time. When things aren’t going well, we so often want it to be fixed and we think we know best. Stop the chaos, God! Get rid of the HVAC guys! Please save me from this. Yet why shouldn’t we believe that an omniscient God would be operating in ways that we simply cannot fathom? Trust me when I tell you, in no way do I believe God is responsible for all suffering. Tragedy happens all the time for no good reason. Negative circumstances could stem from our own poor decisions, the irresponsible decisions of others, or natural evil that is still pervasive in this broken world. However, I do believe that it is very possible that God is working through the chaos in ways we will never comprehend to bring restoration to our lives. And maybe, just maybe, there are times when God is simply trying to fix our air conditioning and things have to get a little messy and disruptive before they get better.
