On Kittens and Love

As I Was Saying is a forum for a variety of perspectives to foster faith-related conversations among our readers with the goal of mutual learning, even in disagreement. Apart from articles written by editorial staff, these perspectives do not necessarily reflect the views of The Banner.

For years, one of our younger sons begged us to add a second cat to the family—specifically, a black and white tuxedo cat. Recently, his dream came true.

I’d been a little resistant to the idea, but at the very end of winter, Princess Athena Fluffy Whiskers arrived, all cuddles and sweetness. Even our aged, curmudgeonly, very-happy-to-be-a-bachelor cat, Shadow, slowly began to be won over by Athena’s gentle spirit.

Little did we fathom, however, that our new bundle of feline joy came bearing surprises. Several tiny, fluffy surprises, in fact. Three weeks after she arrived, we began seeing signs of these surprises; a veterinarian confirmed kittens were imminent.

I was not thrilled. We already had so much on our busy family’s plate; an unplanned cat pregnancy was too much. I’d have to summon the time and energy to add several more creatures to our lives for a few months and then find them loving homes when they were ready to leave their mama.

I especially dreaded walking my kids through the pain of saying goodbye to the kittens when the time came. In a family like mine, where all the kids came to us through older child and youth adoption, I feared this goodbye would mirror the agony of the unimaginable loss they experienced when removed from the care of their birth families.

By any metric, I was not a fan of the impending kittens—until four days later, when in the dark of night, a quintuplet of impossibly tiny, utterly adorable kittens was born.

Immediately, my resentment faded, and I fell completely in love. I began taking a million photos and videos and sending them to all our family and friends as if it was I myself who had birthed these glorious babies. I even told our kids that one of the kittens could stay in our family and become the third Hoff cat.

We’ve spent a lot of time walking our kids through this situation with discussions of how the kittens will eventually be adopted into families that love and cherish them, just like they were adopted into our home where we love and cherish them. They mean everything to us. Surprisingly, this approach seems to be resonating with them.

In fact, in a way I did not foresee, it has been a healing experience for my kids to have an up-close view of a mama cat taking gentle care of her very tiny, highly vulnerable babies.

This is a big thing in a family like mine. Often (but certainly not always), children who come to adoptive homes at older ages did not experience the safest or gentlest care in their babyhoods and early years. This can significantly harm their ability to attach, trust, and form bonds and relationships, including in their adoptive family.

Our kids are all in various states of healing, and to witness the gentle, devoted love of a mother towards her tiny kitten babies from the moment of birth onward has given them the most beautiful experience and visualization of parental love in the newborn days.

While this has turned out to be an incredibly moving and beautiful situation for my family, it makes me reflect how much more so is the incredible adoptive love Christ extends to us, as described in Ephesians 1:5: “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ” (NLT).

And God takes it even further, beyond even the miracle of an adoptive welcoming, and endows us with the gift of his Holy Spirit. Romans 8:15 explains, “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father’” (NLT).

It’s a true welcoming not just into God’s family as his beloved children but a pouring out of his Spirit within us as he works in and through us to live out his calling of love and mercy in a world that hurts.