Carmen the cat lived with the Mendez family in Arizona. She had a little family of kittens 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,” his mother said sadly. “Something must have killed its mother, and now 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 their cat strolled in and walked over to her box. That gave Juan an idea.
“Mother, let’s give it to Carmen. Maybe she’ll take care of it along with her babies.”
“Cats are natural enemies of ground squirrels,” said Juan’s older brother. “Carmen will just kill it.”
However, Juan decided to give it a try. He put the little ground squirrel in 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 hungry little ground squirrel sensed that food was near and crawled over to the mother cat, hoping to get in on the feast. Again Carmen batted 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 found a place to nurse. From then on Carmen accepted the new baby as one of her own.
The little fellow thrived on such good milk, and strangely enough he became Carmen’s favorite. He was much more active than her own babies and could climb in and out of the box long before her own kittens could. Juan named him Frisky.
Frisky loved to jump on top of his big, white adopted mother and ride around on her back. He would climb chairs and the family had to be careful not to sit on him. Sometimes when he was climbing a chair Carmen would grab his tail and pull him back 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. When he grew older, he made a tunnel in the backyard for his home. Then he found a mate and they had a little family of their own. Carmen often paid them a friendly visit.
The story of Carmen and Frisky reminds us of how God has taken poor, lost, helpless sinners into His family. Because of our sins, we were enemies of God, and yet He loved us so much that He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die on the cross for 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” (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)).
Everyone who accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour is born into the family of God. “As many as received Him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God” (John 1:1212But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12)).
Little Frisky was loved and cared for by Carmen the cat, but he could never become a cat. He always remained a ground squirrel. But when God takes us into His family and we become His children, He gives us a new life.
Soon the Lord Jesus is coming to take His family home to heaven to be with Himself forever. Do you belong to His family, and will heaven be your home someday?
ML-04/06/1997