Carmen the cat lived with the Mendez family in Arizona. She had a little family of her own in a box in the corner of the kitchen.
One day young Juan came home with a tiny little ground squirrel that lay limp in the palm of his hand. “Look, Mother,” he exclaimed. “I found it out under a bush; but it’s almost dead.”
“Poor thing,” said his tenderhearted mother. “Something must have killed its mother, and it is starving.”
Juan asked if he could keep it. “But how?” said his mother. “It’s too little to eat lettuce, and how could we keep such a tiny thing alive?”
Just then Carmen the cat strolled in and walked toward her box. Then Juan had an idea.
“Mother, let’s give it to Carmen. She’ll raise it along with her babies.”
“Cats are natural enemies of ground squirrels,” said Juan’s older brother. “Carmen would kill it.”
However, Juan put the little thing among the kittens in the box and watched to see what would happen. Carmen was purring contentedly. When she saw the little stranger, she sniffed him all over; then pushing him aside, she called her babies to dinner.
But the starved little ground squirrel sensed that food was near and crawled over to the mother cat, hoping to get in on the feast. Again Carmen cuffed him away, but again, driven by hunger, the little fellow came back to try again.
Finally, while Carmen was busy washing one of her kittens, the tiny stranger made contact and began to nurse. From then on Carmen accepted the new baby as one of her own.
The little fellow thrived on such wholesome fare, and strangely enough he became Carmen’s favorite. He was much more active than her own babies and could frisk in and out of the box long before her own could. Juan named him Frisky.
Frisky loved to jump on top of his big white mother and ride around her back. He would climb chairs, and the family had to watch carefully lest they sit on him. Sometimes when he was climbing a chair Carmen would grab his tail and pull him down.
Juan and his brothers and sister loved to play with Frisky. He would climb up and sit on their shoulders, and when he scolded and chattered in his little squeaky voice, he would make them all laugh.
Frisky was accepted as one of the family. By and by when he was on his own he made a tunnel in the back yard for his home. Then he found a mate and they had a little family of their own. Carmen would often pay them a friendly visit.
As I read this story of Carmen and Frisky, I could not help but think of how God has taken into His family poor famished, friendless, lost and unworthy sinners. But He doesn’t simply wait for them to come to Him; He goes out after them. He sent His beloved and only begotten Son into this world to be our Saviour, and Jesus left His home in the glory and came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10.)
Thou didst attract the wretched and the weak,
Thy joy the wanderers and the lost to seek.
The proud Pharisees reproached the Lord saying in scorn, “This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Luke 15:2. But the Lord replied, as it were, “I go further than that. I go out and seek them and carry them home.”
All those who trust in the Lord Jesus as their Saviour are born into the family of God, “taken into favor,” “accepted in the Beloved,” and share in all the joys and privileges of the heavenly family. They are loved, nourished and cared for down here. They have a home in heaven prepared for them. Soon the Lord Jesus will come and take them there to be with Himself forever. Do you belong to this heavenly family, dear reader?
ML-10/24/1976