In Due Time
Every single morning, I feed my pets. Well, when my son is home, he does it, but every single morning they get fed. Right now, I am pet sitting my brother’s pit bull, and he gets fed too. My 14 year old tabby cat, Mufasa, he also gets medicine every morning - a crushed pill mixed with wet cat food and his usual amount of dry food as well. They all get fresh, clean water.
Every. Day.
Every. Single. Day.
There are no days off from the pets getting fed.
AND YET, they whine incessantly every day. Impatient and demanding.
Every. Day.
Every. Single. Damn. Day.
This morning, I was running on empty. I wanted to sleep in, but my 105lb Great Dane mix, Bingo, was at my bedside - his giant head on his tall body, large enough to rest it next to me, nose to nose on my bed. I was startled awake with that wet nose, followed by a low grumbling erupting into a bark. Bingo was ready to get up - he had squirrels to chase, food to eat, and life to live. So I must arise. Now.
As I stumbled into the living room, I have to keep myself organized. The pit bull is food aggressive and will rip Bingo’s face off if they’re near each other when eating. I have to prep the cat’s medicine while keeping him away from me so he doesn’t chew my hand off while I’m handling the wet food. It’s all very well choreographed to get everyone fed, safely. While I am dancing my pet food dance to get them all set up for a successful and stress-free breakfast, they are all losing their minds. The cat is screaming loudly, one dog is jumping on the back door so hard I’m convinced he’s going to break the glass, and the other dog is barking loudly enough to wake up the whole neighborhood. Yet if I don’t prep their breakfast in the right way, orchestrated to keep everyone happy and safe, it will all fall apart and their incessant begging and demands will end in disaster.
That’s the same as our lives, isn’t it? You’ve probably heard that “all things work for our good” or “it’ll all work out” or “be patient, later you’ll realize how it all fits together” or something along those lines. And more often than not, it’s true. You might be wildly frustrated in the slow drive-thru line and pissed off at all of it, only to later be driving down the road and see an accident and know that if you hadn’t been delayed, it could’ve been you in that accident. Sometimes, the things that piss us off are only curtains covering the stage, not yet revealing the beautiful scenery and stage set just for you to shine.
We often forget that work needs to be done to set the stage. Things happening behind the scene, delays to how we think things should be done, things not happening the way we think they should or we would do if we were in charge. Our successes, our glories, our achievements are barely a moment of our lives, the culmination of days/months/years of work that led us there. So as we’re waiting for our morning breakfast to be served to us, in a choreographed perfect way that’s just for us and best for us - stop barking. Stop jumping at the door trying to get in too early. Stop screaming and yelling. It will happen. You’ve been taken care of and made it to today. Just as my pets get fed every day, they know they’ll be taken care of. You will too. It will work. Maybe not in the timing you want, the way you want, or with the plans you would prefer - but it will happen. So stop stressing, getting yourself all worked up and flustered, and sit still. Learn from the journey, learn from the waiting, and express intentional gratitude for the process as well as the provision.
