Signed by the Cat

Posted on October 21, 2009 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

“…. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in sins—it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:3-4

When Matthew was about three, he decided to write his name on a card for Rob. He picked up a pencil and stuck his tongue out, intent on getting the points right on the peaks of the “M”. Then he circled the base of the “a” around, making sure that there were no gaps. He stopped for a second, studied his work. “It looks like a cat.”

I glanced down at the pointing “M” on top of the belly of the “a”. Linearity was not exactly his strong point. “Yeah, it does. Sort of.”

He glanced between me and the beginnings of his name on the paper. Sticking his tongue out again, he drew in eyes and whiskers. Then he dropped his pencil and nodded. “I wanted to make a cat for Daddy.” Satisfied with his duty, he slid off the stool and trotted off to play. 

I still get a kick out of Matthew’s acceptance of imperfection, and you can bet Rob enjoyed our son’s clever attempt at communication. Matthew allowed himself a mistake, even turned it into a bit of art, then played in joy, certain of the expression of love he’d sent his Daddy.

One time I sat at our dining room table with this big old basketball player. I think his name was J.J. He told me about how he felt God calling him into a relationship. “But you know,” J.J. said, “I’ve got to get my life right before I can do that. I’ve got to stop doing all the wrong things I’m doing before I could even ask God to call me His.”

I shook my head. “No. No. This is not how it works. As a matter of fact if you wait until you are perfect to follow God, then you’ll never get there. You’ll never be perfect, you’ll never be right. Not in your own power of course.” And here’s the deal. In God’s world, He tells us to give it to Him. All of it. Give Him our life, our mistakes, our sins in the past, present and even future. And through Jesus, the last sacrifice to God, all of those things will finally be acceptable to the Father. Including our failing lives. Our failures in life. Including the things we may do tomorrow.

When we believe in Jesus to make us pure again, our love becomes as simple as Matthew’s love for his daddy, and He loves us as simply as Rob loves Matthew. We have imperfections. Tomorrow the signature we leave on the world may look nothing like us today. It may be as insignificant as a random cat. But because of Jesus, God will see through all of those mistakes. And He will accept our lives as a beautiful—and sometimes humorous—work of art created for our Father. He does this so, like Matthew, we can trot off to play, enlivened by our imperfect, but valid expressions of love to our Daddy. This is grace.

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