In our kitchen we have two places on the walls above the counters that have square holes cut in them. The square pieces have been put back in, but the marks are still there. Sometimes people ask us what those holes were for and we tell them our story.
Ever since we moved into this house, our mother cats have found a way to get into the attic to have their babies. We never went up in the attic ourselves, because it was just a crawl space full of insulation. But the mother cats liked the attic. They would raise their little babies up there until they were old enough to follow them. Then they would bring them down to the big, outside world.
Last year one of the cats had another litter of kittens up in the attic. As I came into the kitchen one morning, I heard a faint mewing sound coming from the top cabinet. I opened it, but there was nothing there. This seemed a little strange, but I left the house and thought no more about it. The next day I heard the sound again and wondered what it could mean. When my husband came home from work, we listened carefully to the sound and finally decided that a baby kitten must have fallen down from the attic and was stuck inside the wall. We knew that the mother cat couldn’t do a thing about that kitten’s problem and that it would die if we left it there. But there was a wall separating us from rescuing that kitten.
We felt so sorry for that poor kitten, yet the only way we could help it was to cut a big, ugly hole in our kitchen wall. My husband got out his saw and carefully cut into the wall where we thought the kitten was stuck. Sure enough, when he pulled out the square piece of wall, there was the tiny newborn kitten right in the middle of the hole. I picked it up and tried to comfort it. My husband climbed up into the attic and brought down the mother cat and her babies. Then we put them in a cage so she couldn’t take them back to the attic.
After several days we let the mother cat out, and the next morning when I came into the kitchen I heard mewing again! The mother cat had taken the babies back to the attic and the same thing had happened, only this time it was in a different spot.
Again, we carefully cut another hole in the wall, and there sat a little kitten. Suddenly, we noticed a little paw sticking through the top corner of the hole and realized that there was another kitten stuck in there too. It was frantically wiggling its paw at us like it was trying to say, “Please, please, help me out of here!” We managed to pull it to safety too. This time, the hole to the attic was boarded up so that no cats can get in there again.
Now we have those marks on our wall to remind us of the rescue and salvation of those kittens. And I want to tell you about some other marks of rescue and salvation. You and I are helpless sinners, separated from God by a wall of our sins. There is not one way that we can rescue ourselves from our sin. That is why we need a Saviour. The Son of God, at great cost to Himself, bore our sins in His own body so that the wall of sin could be taken away. He died so that we could live. Why did He do that for us? It was because He loved us so much that He didn’t want us to die in our lost and helpless condition. Our Saviour is the Lord Jesus Christ, and in John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) we see the reason that He rescued us. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
As those kittens grew up, we liked to cuddle them and play with them. One of the kittens was so sweet and loving; it was a real pet. But the other kitten wasn’t very nice. It was wild and mean, and when we tried to pet it, it would run away. It didn’t seem very grateful to us for saving its life. Sadly, when we don’t accept the Lord Jesus as our Deliverer, we are treating Him the same way. He died to save each one of us, and when we accept Him as our Saviour we are set free. When we see Him in heaven, we will see the marks of our salvation in His blessed hands and feet and side, and we will thank Him forever.
ML-03/29/1998