We had an unusual occurance at my house this weekend. It was rather enlightening in many ways about who we are as a family, who God is as our Father, and who Jesus is as our Shepherd.

You may or may not know that we are not cat people. My family and my husband’s family have NEVER owned a cat…ever.

Soooo…we got a cat last year: Henry is his name.

It has been….interesting…adapting to owning a cat.

Did you know that cats are not like dogs?

Like, at all.

Crazy, huh?

Eye opening realization for me and my household- let me tell you!

In our acceptance of Henry and his acceptance of us (because apparently cats don’t just love you as their human like a dog does), we have grown pretty fond of him.

This brings me to Sunday afternoon…

I come home from church and expect to see his usual slant eyed glare in greeting from the top of the stairs…he does not show up.

I quickly realize he is nowhere to be found in the house and then see that the first floor window screen has been popped out!

I quickly put one and two together to draw the conclusion that he had escaped out the window!

My husband and boys returned home soon after to find me circling the house with Henry’s treats calling for him.

My son decided to look under the front porch and saw Henry’s green eyes starting back at him!

However, Henry was pretty spooked by the exposure to the BIG OUTSIDE WORLD and ducked further back under the porch where we could no longer see him let alone reach him.

In a manner of minutes, my husband did the unimaginable: he started to tear up the porch in his effort to get our little man back to us!

Once the boards were lifted, we saw a very small hole in the corner…but no Henry under the porch.

My oldest put his arm way down into that tiny hole and used his phone to take a video: checking to see if we could see Henry at all.

Low and behold, Henry had gotten himself wedged super far under a dirt cave within the foundation that surrounded our house under the deck.

We could not reach him.

My husband and boys began digging more frantically in an effort to reach him before they realized it was futile. Either Henry would somehow come up on his own or….he wouldn’t.

We decided to enclose the area with a tarp and waited to see what would happen next..

Now, I don’t know about the rest of you…but to me, tearing up my front porch is a HUGE deal!

To do so in an effort to rescue a cat is radical!

One could say it is an example of radical love.

Without hesitation, my husband grabbed a crowbar and started to yank up floor boards with our sons looking on and me laying on the ground crying and pleading with Henry to come out.

As I watched him, I was amazed. All I could think of was how much a father loves his family and would do anything for them.

I looked at our boys and knew we would do so much more for them if the situation called for it.

I could not help but think of what exactly it means when a shepherd, our Shepherd, leaves the 99 in search for that one lost.

Sometimes, it looks like laying on the floor by the stairs waiting to hear a sound from kitten in the hole below.

Sometimes, it looks like waiting by the phone while pacing, crying, and praying to hear that your boy is alright.

Sometimes, it looks like your head on the hospital bed that he is sleeping on while your body is in a hard wooden chair.

Sometimes, it is nose to nose, forehead to forehead: breathing the same air together to keep the panic at bay when he is getting stitches.

It looks like my Savior going to the Cross for me…His Father held nothing back so I could be saved.

That is radical love…

After a few hours, Henry poked his head up from the hole and meowed frantically for me to pick him up…and then, if you knew this cat you would know how crazy this next part is, he let me hug him tight for a few minutes.

My husband went back to work today… putting life back together as well as our front porch..he also tightened all the screens in the windows to prevent a future incident!

Our Father in heaven does the same…keeps us safe, sets boundaries, watches over us…

We, too, are radically loved.