Another Position Filled in the Body of Christ

(Originally written May 1999)
My eleven year old Siamese-mix cat, Reeboks, is a real sweetheart! He has a wonderful disposition. He likes to be near me, so if I am sewing, he is sleeping in that room with me. If I am sorting laundry, he is playing in the laundry basket. If I am reading he is either nearby or on my lap. He is a house cat and is a big part of our family.

He began coughing on a Thursday and I just figured he was hacking up a hairball. (OK, there is one bad thing about cats, but HEY, we all have something that we do that isn't fit for company!) On Saturday he began to wheeze. I figured he was catching a cold. On Sunday he was worse.

On Monday morning he was a mess! His mouth was hanging open and he was drooling all over the place. He was wheezing big time. All he would do was lie still. He wouldn't eat or drink. He was in big trouble. I took him in to the vet as soon as they opened.

The vet gave him a thorough examination which included x-rays. When the x-rays were developed the vet took me into the room where the viewer was.

He showed me where Reeboks' heart was. He pointed out that Reeboks' heart was too small. That's right! Too small! The vet says that usually between the ages of 6 and 9 cats with that problem all of a sudden start exhibiting the symptoms my cat had.
The reason he was wheezing was because the heart was not pumping the blood fast enough and fluids were seeping out of the blood. Reeboks' lungs were filling up with fluid! He was drowning!

The vet tried to give me some hope but I could tell from the look on his face that there was no hope. He said the chance he would recover was very slim. He gave me a diuretic to try to get the fluids to subside and sent me home.

I paid the bill and took my kitty home to die. It was horrible! I don't usually ask for prayer, but I began calling and emailing people because I had no hope. I felt sure my cat was as good as dead. Yes, he was not a young cat at the age of eleven, but he wasn't old enough to die!

I then realized that there still was hope. With a God as BIG as ours, there is ALWAYS HOPE!

I went outside and I began to pray. I got down on my knees and prayed for the Lord to heal my cat. I finished my praise and petitions and then remained silent to listen to anything God wanted to tell me.

I'd like to interject here that I had been asking the Lord to show me what my portion was in the Body of Christ. I knew God had been preparing me for something, but I had no clear direction on what I should be doing. My prayer partner had told me once that the Lord revealed to her that whatever I was going to be doing was something big. I was looking forward to hear what it was, but hadn't received direction yet.

OK, so I was kneeling and waiting for the Lord to speak to me. When I am praying I keep a notebook handy so I can write down anything I get from the Lord. I don't write it down unless I know for sure it is from Him. If I "hear" something in my spirit and I am not sure it was from Him I ask Him to repeat it to me. He does. He will continue until I am sure.

I "heard" the Lord telling me in that still, small voice He uses, "I give you the authority....." there was kind of a pause. "The authority? The authority?" I asked. I love that word, authority! "To speak life," came to me. I repeated what I had heard. "I have been given the authority to speak life." I thought about it for half a second and then, BOOM, it hit me! WOW!! I thought about it a little more. WOW WOW WOW!! OH MY GOODNESS!! The authority to speak life!! WHOOPIE! THANK YOU, LORD! The possibilities are endless!!

I immediately went into the house and began speaking life to my cat's heart, lungs, and the rest of his body! I then danced around the house praising the Lord!

I began telling people what had happened. I was so sure my cat would be fine, I began telling people he would be. Then, I started having doubts. I had to fight off the feeling of thinking I misunderstood, or never heard the Lord say that. Most of the people that I told treated me like I was totally out of my mind. I had two friends, my prayer partner and my praise partner, that were excited and were praising God with me. The rest of the people I told tried to get me to "understand" that God wasn't interested in cats, God doesn't give people the authority to speak life, and that I was going to be even more hurt when my cat died like the vet expected him to die.

I began to rebuke Satan and told him I was given the authority and there wasn't anything he could do about it. I told the doubters that God would prevail. I imagined myself holding a shield, a shield of faith, and began to fend off the fiery darts that were being shot my way! I pulled out my book of praise songs and began to praise the Lord. Every once in a while I would go find Reeboks and speak life into his body.

The thought kept popping into my mind: what would happen if Reeboks died. What would I tell people? God knew of my struggles with that great amount of faith He wanted from me and had a friend of mine forward a prophecy from Bill and Marsha Burns, two modern day prophets.

The basic idea of the prophecy was that God would take care of His own reputation. I didn't have to worry about it. If God said it, then it would happen. God cannot lie. God wants to prove His existence to others and is aware that His reputation is on the line. Glory, hallelujah!! God is GOOD! His timing is impeccable! My faith level jumped two notches! He gave me the authority and, if I was obedient to apply it, then He would make it so!

The first sign that something was happening was when I turned around after speaking life into Reeboks and he was following me slowly down the hall. He had been lying in the same place for two days. I petted him and told him I loved him and he went back to lie down.

Each day there was a sign of improvement. The signs were small, but they were there. I continued to speak life into him.

A week later, he was still carrying extra liquid in his body. I could feel it when I pressed on the top of his head. It was squishy. He was moving slowly, but was eating canned food and moving about the house. He couldn't meow yet. You could see his mouth forming the meow, but nothing came out. (That happened on 5/24/99 and his meower never returned to normal. I think it hurts his throat to meow. When he really really wants to make noise he squeezes out a pretty good meowing sound, though. According to the vet there is a nerve that connects the heart and a cat's voice box. When cats have heart problems it often affects their meower. Yet, this is not a bad thing. He used to MEOW MEOW MEOW early in the mornings and wake me up. Now he doesn't.)

So, I learned what one of my jobs was in the Body of Christ. Yet, I wasn't sure if it was a permanent job, a temporary job, or a job that was to be used only when God directed. Over the years I have asked Him, but was never clear on the answer.

The Lord has given me a vision of how the Body of Christ functions. It is similar to a branch of the military. There are people in charge of certain groups and areas. There are groups assigned to different tasks. There are tasks within tasks. There are many, many jobs that are necessary to keep the entire unit functioning properly. Each person is valuable. In the Body of Christ each person is trained by the Lord Himself and given the talents necessary to function in his position.

The Lord is not going to force us to cooperate with Him. That is why the Body is not functioning the way it should. Some people are not interested in finding out what their job is. Others don't seek God's will and do their job their own way. God isn't sleeping, however. I believe as the time grows short He will raise up others to take the place of those who won't cooperate with Him. The Body is becoming stronger and more powerful. I believe we are going to be seeing some really spectacular things in the near future, things that will turn people's minds toward the Lord! Gosh, even what happened to Reeboks is a sign to non-believers and believers, alike!! HALLELUJAH!

It doesn't end with healing my cat. The Lord has more dead things that need to have life spoken into them. There are situations, relationships, church bodies, nations, people, families, marriages, and much much more. I could go on and on! This story is far from over!

ANOTHER CHAPTER
(Written in Feb 2006, almost seven years later)

After the healing of my cat, Reeboks, I began to wonder what was the next step in my "speaking life" gift. Was it gone, only given as a temporary thing? Was I to speak life into other things? If so, which other things? All things? Only those things that God specified?

I asked God over and over about it and didn't get any specific answers. So, I really didn't do much speaking life.

Here I am almost seven years later. Reeboks is now 18 years old. I am still giving him a very tiny dose of the diuretic every morning just to keep his blood thin. His heart is probably still too small because he doesn't play actively for very long because it makes him tired. He can still jump up onto the window sill. He still likes to chase shoestrings. He is fine, for an 18 year old cat.

Bug is my other cat that was a kitten when we first found out about Reebok's heart problem. I think that the reason we discovered Reebok's problem was because Reeboks was playing with Bug a lot. They were chasing each other and wrestling with each other. Reeboks had never been so active all his life up until that time. It was probably all of that activity that made his heart unable to keep up.

After Reeboks got well he no longer wanted to play with Bug. Bug tried to play with him and Reeboks would just hiss and run away. They haven't been close since then. Reeboks probably associates Bug with something bad and so he avoids him.

So, Bug is almost seven years old. The beginning of this month I took him to the vet. He hadn't been eating well, which all by itself said something was wrong. I can't leave food out for my cats because he eats and eats and eats. I've had to separate them to feed them so I could fatten up Reeboks and thin down Bug.

Bug was also drinking a ton of water and was lethargic. Ever since we got him as a kitten he would contract his muscles when he was falling asleep so it looked like his legs were pulling together. It wasn't severe, but it was odd. When I had mentioned it to the vet when Bug was young they didn't know what it was. Now, he was drawing his legs up harder while he was trying to fall asleep.

The vet examined him and found some lumps. He x-rayed Bug. The x-ray showed that one of Bug's kidneys looked like it was dead. It was huge and dark on the x-ray. The other kidney was swollen. The vet told me that cats often have kidney problems but usually not until they are old. He said he would draw blood to see if he could tell if the second kidney was healthy enough to keep Bug alive. However, because it was swollen, because Bug's gums were white indicating his red blood cell count was low, and because he was drinking so much water it was likely the second kidney was failing, too.

I was re-living what had taken place with Reeboks. The vet was trying to tell me that my cat was dying! He gave me my options. I could spend over $600 to have surgery performed to remove the dead kidney which was pressing against Bug's intestines and his stomach. Then we could wait and see if the other, swollen, kidney would decide to start working properly. Yet, the chance of that happening was very unlikely.

When the vet called me with the results of the blood test he gave a bad prognosis. All the blood counts were bad. My cat was dying.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

My first reaction was to cry, just like I did with Reeboks. I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything but cry.

Then, I went to sit at God's feet and talked to Him about it. I gave Bug to Him and asked Him to either heal Bug or to make sure Bug didn't suffer. Bug could die right away (which seemed likely since his condition had deteriorated so rapidly) or he could hang on a while while his body shut down.

Then I got still and listened for God's voice. Then He said:
There are four things I want you to know:
1. I love cats
2. I'm not hiding or sleeping
3. I am able to accomplish My purposes in spite of man
4. Just do it. Speak life. Speak life into the Body [of Christ], life into Bug, life life life!

Two weeks later, here I am. I have been speaking life into Bug. He's not well. He still has a swollen body. He is still drinking too much water. He isn't eating all of his food. However, he is not drinking as much water as he was. He is eating more than had been. He is grooming himself again. He is having spurts of energy now and then.

So, that's what my human eyes see. Yet, my spiritual eyes see Bug living a lot of more years as a healthy cat!!

I am so excited about this. People are still going to think I'm crazy, but that is their problem. You can't tell me that my cats survived terminal diseases because I tricked them into thinking they were healthy! You can't tell me that two cases of miraculous recoveries are coincidental! Anyone who believes that is just fooling himself.

So, here I am. I am responsible for speaking life into things. I have to picture things that have the appearance of dying as being alive and well. I have to fight back the doubting thoughts that pop into my head. I have to not listen when people tell me that things are hopeless. I must stay focused on the task at hand and believe in what God can do through me... NOTHING WAVERING!

There is another study I did on faith and not wavering that you might enjoy. It is called Nothing Wavering.