Day writing by Heather Hamilton-Maude: VBS and the Grey cat

VBS (Vacation Bible School) week began last Monday with my kids excitedly rolling out of their rooms fully dressed and ready to go, at 4:50 a.m.

We leave for VBS at 7:50 a.m. VBS lasts five days.

There I was after dropping them off with the neighbor, contemplating the full day lived by 8:00 a.m. Then my husband came in and said, “Grey may be in the house someplace…”

Grey is a large, fluffy, grey tomcat that lives on our place. He will not let people touch him. Not super wild, hence gaining a name, but also not tame.

I wondered the same thing you’re probably wondering – how did Grey end up in the house, and how was it that no one knew if he was or was not still there.

The story went that my husband got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night to find the north door wide open, and a surprised Grey standing in the middle of the living room. Upon giving chase from one end of the house to the other, all with the door left open, my husband eventually couldn’t find him. So, he shut the door and went back to bed, hoping the cat had exited the same way he came.

I got a chuckle out of it, and carried on in a semi-exhausted state. Never did find Grey in the house.

Fast forward to the following night, and my husband was once again was up at 3:30 a.m. to use the bathroom. He heard or saw something in the bathroom cabinet. When he went to check it out, Grey burst from the cabinet depths, landing at my husband’s bare feet on a linoleum floor. In the dark. The cat was spinning out in an attempt to leave the scene as my husband fought to not lose a toe and also not lose the cat.

Grey eventually hit carpet and streaked to the far end of the house. After a few laps, he went under our son’s bed. This lead to the decision to shut the bedroom door, remove the window screen, then flush Grey the rest of the way outside.

So the story was told to me the following morning when I asked why it sounded like World War Three had occurred at 4 a.m. for the second morning in a single week.

The VBS message for the week was focused on Psalm 23, which included Psalm 23:4 – “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

While we humans can find truth and great comfort in this verse, I don’t think Grey will ever fully appreciate it after his VBS week experience.