Several years ago, my husband and I noticed that one of our cats had lost his sense of balance and that he was holding his head at an odd angle. A short time later, he lost the use of one of his back legs and the sight in one eye. He could no longer run up and down the circular open stairs in our house. Jumping onto the bed or the sofa became difficult. He purred much less frequently. At one point he fell off a second story deck.
As cats go, Biko was on the older side—about thirteen or fourteen at the time. He was a dear companion to me, and I was grief-stricken at the thought of losing him.
But even though I was distressed, I realized that there was something I could do, and that was to pray. For some time, I'd been deeply committed to seeing the practical effects of Jesus' promise: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death" (John 8:51). To me, this involved focusing on the nature of God as Life itself. I had been praying to understand more of Life whenever I was confronted with a situation that suggested that death or sickness is real or powerful. I saw this situation with Biko as another opportunity to do just that.
